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February 20, 2023 4 mins

The Biden administration pardons those convicted of possession of marijuana at the federal level.

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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm Clayton English and I'm Greg Laud and this is
a war on drugs quick fix. Okay, So Greg, I
read something online. Um, you know why we've been recording
this season. The Biden administration came out and said that
they I don't know exactly how to put it. He's

(00:24):
saying that weed is is not bad or you shouldn't
be in jail for weed on a federal level. It
wasn't really clear. So that's why I'm coming to you.
If I didn't understand it, I know some of the
people at home probably didn't either. And I knew that
you would have a little bit more insight than I did. Yeah,
And and it was vague for a reason. So not
understanding is yeah, but I know what you're talking about.

(00:46):
So the Biden administration, um, you know, at the time
of this recording, and it was I think early October,
it happened, Um, And so there might be some more
information by time you hear this. But the Bid administration
essentially did two things. One they pardon, which means essentially
this crime never happened. That's what they did for drug
possession marijuana offenses, for federal crime, for the federal criminal

(01:10):
justice system. And then also for d C they have
authority over the DC courts and things like that. So
no one was actually in prison for marijuana possession. It
doesn't happen at the federal level. I was about to say, yeah,
I feel like it would be a little bit more
than just marijuana charge. Yeah, you're yeah. Essentially that criminal
record comes off. So that was the whole point, that

(01:30):
you're not going to have this on your record anymore.
But there's very few people that all they have is
a federal marijuana possession conviction. The second thing he did
was essentially said to other government agencies that we're going
to start looking at the scheduling of marijuana because, as
we've talked about, marijuana is a Schedule one drug. Yeah,
it has no medical value whatsoever. There is only you know,

(01:53):
it's only a narcotic for narcotic sake. It has nothing,
no medical value. You can't do research really on it
without very high level exemption ins and and all these things.
And so they said, let's do an expedited review of
whether this should still be scheduled at Schedule one. Marijuana
is Schedule one, and cocaine is scheduled to cocaine is scheduled.
Does that even make sense? Well, a lot of it

(02:15):
gets back to power and authority, right, Well, it's it's
about kind of the power and control that comes with
making in a schedule and drug control. Every single last
bit about this, And you know, we needed to villainize marijuana,
you know, and Natalie Papione kind of talked about the
history of prohibition on marijuana. There were reports and study
saying you should decriminalize it, like it should not be
a federal crime. But it allowed for an expansion of

(02:38):
policing powers, allowed for more civilists, of furniture, allowed for
you know, milliization, a police that allowed for all these
different things that all the things that we've been talking
about beyond just the drug war, that the drug war
allows for it to happen. So you make it schedule one,
you make it the worst of the worst, and and
that's essentially what went down. And you know, someone like
Edwin Rubis, that's how he gets to be incars ready

(02:58):
for forty years for conspiracy to distribute marijuana when marijuana
physical Yeah, And I mean, and I don't know what person, everyday,
regular person sees that, and it's like, oh, Yeah, marijuana
is way worse than cocaine. Cocaine, we know about the overdoses.
We know what it can do, the damage it can
do to your heart, the damage it can do to

(03:19):
your brain by just overuse. Right. Unfortunately, we doesn't have that. Man,
A weed overdose involves you going to sleep with your
shoes on. You know what I'm saying, eating cereal like
is we we we we actually cares about you. It'll
tell you go to sleep before you kill yourself. Yeah,

(03:45):
and I'm Clayton English and this has been a war
on drugs. Quick Fix, Thanks for listening.
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