President Joe Biden is looking into using his executive authority to grant clemency to people with certain non-violent drug convictions, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Asked about plans for federal inmates who were released to home confinement during the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic but who will have to return behind bars, Psaki said the administration is \u201cworking hard every day to reform our justice system in order to strengthen families, boost our economy, give people a chance at a better future.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAs part of this, the president is deeply committed to reducing incarceration, helping people successfully reenter society. And he has said too many people are incarcerated\u2014too many are black and brown,\u201d she said<\/a>. \u201cAnd he is therefore exploring multiple avenues to provide relief to certain nonviolent drug offenders, including through the use of his clemency power.\u201d<\/p>\n\n Psaki added that there\u2019s nothing actionable to preview at this point, but the president is \u201clooking at a range of avenues\u201d for relief. The fact that, as a senator, Biden played a key role in enacting punitive drug laws that contributed to the mass incarceration he\u2019s now considering steps to resolve did not come up at Wednesday\u2019s briefing.<\/p>\n Clemency actions that the president could take include commuting the sentences of those who are currently incarcerated or pardoning people whose records impede their abilities to get jobs, vote or otherwise participate in society.<\/p>\n Biden has faced criticism from drug policy reform advocates who\u2019ve grown frustrated that he\u2019s yet to make good on campaign promises such as decriminalizing marijuana. While his opposition to adult-use legalization remains a challenge on its own, they feel he should at least take steps to enact modest reform.<\/p>\n The president also campaigned on expunging prior cannabis records and respecting the rights of states to set their own laws.<\/p>\n Since taking office, however, his administration has not made progress on any of those pledges and has instead fired its own White House staffers over marijuana<\/a>\u00a0and sought to extend a budget provision that has\u00a0blocked Washington, D.C. from legalizing cannabis sales<\/a>.<\/p>\n In April, Psaki was pressed on Biden\u2019s clemency promise for people with federal marijuana and said that process will start with modestly rescheduling cannabis<\/a>\u2014a proposal that advocates say wouldn\u2019t actually accomplish what she\u2019s suggesting.<\/p>\n Moving cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule II under the Controlled Substances Act, as Biden is proposing, wouldn\u2019t facilitate mass clemency given that being convicted for crimes related to drugs in that slightly lower category\u2014which currently includes cocaine\u2014also carries significant penalties.<\/p>\n Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) said during a recent interview that Biden could and should use executive authority<\/a> to end federal marijuana prohibition on his own\u2014but the two of them have \u201cdifferences\u201d when it comes to drug policy. There are, however, legal questions about whether a president could actually legalize cannabis unilaterally given existing statutes.<\/p>\n These States Could Have Marijuana And Psychedelics Legalization On The Ballot In 2022<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n Photo courtesy of Flickr\/Marc Nozell<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n The post Biden Exploring Clemency For People With Federal Drug Convictions, White House Says<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n
President Joe Biden is looking into using his executive authority to grant clemency to people with certain non-violent drug convictions, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said on Wednesday. Asked about plans for federal inmates who were released to home confinement during the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic but whoContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":458,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18,81],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49411"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/458"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49411"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49411\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49412,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49411\/revisions\/49412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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\nRead More: Biden Exploring Clemency For People With Federal Drug Convictions, White House Says<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"