Political progress is usually slow but few issues are as prone to setbacks as cannabis reform
From one perspective, advocates for legalizing pot at the federal level should be happy with the current situation: pot is legal for adult use in nearly half the states and counting; there are reform advocates in both parties during a time of deep political division on most other issues; and a president who spent nearly his whole life supporting the War on Drugs seems to have come around on the subject, at least partially.
But from another perspective, at least equally valid, the current situation is terrible. A few years ago a lot of people thought, with good reason, that federal legalization was all but imminent. And yet, here we are now with some advocates uncertain if legalization will ever happen at all. Congress can’t even pass a bill that would shield banks from liability for doing business with cannabis companies in legal states, much less legalize weed altogether.
Political progress is usually slow, of course, but few issues are as prone as cannabis reform is to progress of the “one step forward, three steps back” variety.
A good indication of the moribund status of legalization is the reaction of members of the Congressional Cannabis Caucus to the latest news on the Biden administration’s cannabis scheduling review, announced last fall. The Department of Health and Human Services is studying whether it’s a good idea or not to keep weed a Schedule 1 narcotic under the Controlled Substances Act, up there with heroin and bath salts, with the severest possible punishments attached.
Of course, everybody knows it’s a bad idea. HHS is studying it nonetheless, but at least it’s only taking them a year or so. Last week, HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra told Marijuana Moment, which reports on pot law and policy, that he “hopes” the department’s review will be completed and forwarded on to the White House “this year.” Well, praise be!
The Congressional Cannabis Caucus, which has pushed pretty hard for reform—as such things go—expressed what Marijuana Moment called “cautious optimism” about this timeline. Rep. Barbara Lee, a Caucus member who represents the East Bay in the House, was the most pointed in her reaction: “Federal descheduling is long overdue,” she told Marijuana Moment. “We’ve been pushing the Biden administration to take bold steps to end the war on drugs, and I’m hopeful they will.”
The others, including Rep. Blumenauer, a Democrat in Oregon, and Dave Joyce, an Ohio Republican, expressed similar “hopes.”
Clearly, we’re a long way from “weed is about to be legalized.” Still, any progress is better than regress. And the fact that Biden—who not all that long ago was still calling cannabis a “gateway drug” and questioning the wisdom of legalization—surprised everyone with his announcement just before the midterm elections last year that not only was he reviewing the law but also that he would be granting mass pardons for people convicted federally for simple possession of weed. “As I’ve said before, no one should be in jail just for using or possessing marijuana,” Biden said in announcing the initiative.
Though he had indeed said it before—and also had questioned cannabis scheduling in the criminal code, and even campaigned on decriminalization, though stopping short of supporting legalization—he had been essentially mum on the subject since taking office. So it seemed like, and sort of was, a momentous move.
At the same time, though, if the HHS review leads to a call for pot to be descheduled, it will be up to the Drug Enforcement Administration to take action, which is less than completely edifying to advocates. The consensus seems to be that the DEA will likely go along since the HHS’s decisions, whatever they are, will be binding, at least theoretically.
And if the HHS does call for descheduling, that will be another step forward toward full legalization by Congress and the president. But will there be another three steps back before that happens? Going by history, probably so.
