Marijuana legalization is popular in America. In contrast, President Joe Biden is unpopular. No wonder efforts are being made in Biden’s reelection campaign to paint him as supportive of liberalizing marijuana policy. There is just one problem, over Biden’s three-plus years as president he has done zilch to end the United States government’s marijuana prohibition.
While the Biden administration has taken actions to adjust with US government’s war on marijuana — alternatively restricting and expanding it here and there, it has not taken action to accomplish the popular goal of marijuana legalization. Jacob Sullum explains in detail in a Wednesday Reason article how Biden as president has left marijuana prohibition “essentially untouched” and has failed to support any legalization effort. Read Sullum’s article here.
Biden has been acting similarly to how Democratic leadership of the United States House of Representatives and Senate acted even when Democrats held a majority of both legislative bodies, in addition fellow Democrat Biden holding the presidency, from January of 2021 to January of 2023. Instead of backing a straightforward legalization bill that could have made it into law, they instead chose as their vehicle for legalization the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement (MORE) Act, a bill destined to fail to become law due to its inclusion of extraneous race-based and marijuana business subsidies provisions.
There is a difference between trying to look like you favor ending the war on marijuana and taking action to actually end the war on marijuana. Will most voters see through the charade?
