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Melissa Harris-Perry: Hey, everyone. It's The Takeaway, and I'm MHP. On Thursday, President Biden announced he will pardon all prior federal offenses of simple marijuana possession.
President Joe Biden: There are thousands of people who were convicted for marijuana possession who may be denied employment, housing, or educational opportunities as a result of that conviction. My pardon will remove this burden on them.
Melissa Harris-Perry: Biden is urging governors to follow his lead at the state level, and he called on the Attorney General and the Secretary of Health and Human Services to "review expeditiously marijuana's classification under the Federal Controlled Substance Act."
With me is Maritza Perez, Director of the Office of Federal Affairs at the Drug Policy Alliance. Maritza, thanks for joining us on The Takeaway.
Maritza Perez: Thank you so much for having me.
Melissa Harris-Perry: Let's just start with a few of the facts to get these straight. First of all, this pardon apparently affects thousands of Americans, but there's no one actually in federal prison simply because of simple possession of marijuana? Help me understand that.
Maritza Perez: Yes, that's right. While there's no one in prison for this charge currently, the pardon will still affect approximately 6,500 people. This number comes from the number of folks who have been charged with simple marijuana possession at the federal level over the course of about 30 years. I do want to highlight that for those individuals, this is really significant. It can mean that they can move on with their lives and improve their lives. It's still a solid thousand of people that this is going to impact.
Melissa Harris-Perry: The very point that you're making there, that it's not releasing anyone from prison, but it does release people from the continuing prison, the continuing punishment that occurs. It's an interesting political move. It doesn't open up the Biden administration to these claims from the right that he's "putting criminals on the street," but it allows him to make meaningful criminal justice reform.
Maritza Perez: Yes, I think so. The way I think about this policy is that it really is meaningful politically. I think, policy-wise, I would've loved to see it go further. This is still pretty significant, especially for this administration. The fact that he acknowledged significant harm that's caused by criminalizing people, and specifically he recognized racial disparities in marijuana enforcement, that's significant.
He also recognized that a lot of these convictions are happening at the state level. He's already made the position that nobody should be in prison or in jail at the federal or state level. That's a significant policy position.
I also think the fact that he called for the federal government to look at the scheduling of marijuana shows that he acknowledges that marijuana does not belong on Schedule I. All of those are significant acknowledgments, and I'm hoping that could help us move toward better policy on this issue.
Melissa Harris-Perry: Maritza, for those who are not following this quite as closely, remind people what it means to say that marijuana is Schedule I.
Maritza Perez: Schedule I is reserved substances that have high potential for abuse and no therapeutic value. These are usually what people call "hard drugs". Marijuana has been on Schedule I since about 1970. We know that marijuana is used largely for a number of reasons, including for medical reasons.
For a long time, folks have said that they don't believe that it belongs on Schedule I if it belongs on the drug schedule at all. The Drug Policy Alliance takes the position that marijuana must be completely descheduled because that's the only way that we could ensure that marijuana is decriminalized and we can remove a lot of the harms associated with federal prohibition.
Melissa Harris-Perry: Okay, Maritza, so there's also this group of DC residents, does that help us to understand that?
Maritza Perez: This pardon specifically extended to people in DC with federal marijuana possession charges. I actually believe that that's going to have a pretty significant impact. We're talking about a city that its criminal justice system, like many other cities, unfortunately, is disproportionately Black, disproportionately poor. I think it'll really have a unique impact here in the city of DC.
Melissa Harris-Perry: Help me understand what the timeline looks like for actually making this a reality.
Maritza Perez: I think to implement the pardon process itself, it sounds like the Attorney General needs to work with the pardon attorney. I'm not sure how long that could take for them to figure out what that process would look like. There's also going to be an application process in order for folks to receive a pardon certificate. That may take some time. He also called for the government to review the scheduling of marijuana. My understanding of the scheduling process itself, that could be a months-long process, even more than a year.
Melissa Harris-Perry: First of all, if it were rescheduled or taken off the schedule list altogether at the federal level, would that affect the state level or does each state have the capacity to determine where marijuana sits on their own state law books?
Maritza Perez: Yes, so let's say that the federal government descheduled tomorrow, the states could still choose to criminalize or decriminalize marijuana, but it would help in other respects. There are plenty of non-citizens who face very severe immigration consequences, including detention and deportation, even when that marijuana activity is in compliance with state and local laws.
Removing federal prohibition and scheduling, removing marijuana from the list of controlled substances, would help individuals like that. Then removing from Schedule I, of course, helps with research because it's really hard to study substances on Schedule I status.
Melissa Harris-Perry: Is this October surprise? Is this a political move on the part of the Biden administration? If so, is it a good one?
Maritza Perez: Yes, I do think that this was a strategic political move and I think it was a smart one. If you look across the demographic groups and across party lines, marijuana decriminalization and the issue of marijuana reform is incredibly popular and has a lot of support. What's really frustrating for me doing this work is that I find that Congress is very much behind where the public is.
I'm hoping that this spurs Congress into action, and in fact, there's a Senate bill that was recently introduced that would deschedule marijuana, provide for a broader resentencing and expungement, which we still need after this announcement, and it would address the collateral consequences of marijuana prohibition and criminalization. I'm hoping that this will encourage Congress to take up wgere Biden left off, essentially.
Melissa Harris-Perry: I just want to ask about Brittney Griner, who is currently serving a nine-year sentence in Russia around basically a simple possession. I'm wondering if the national outrage about that reality might have also helped to push the Biden administration in this moment.
Maritza Perez: I got to say, the same thing ran through my mind, and I gave that a lot of thought when I first heard this announcement. I can't help but think it must have had some influence because when I think about Brittney Griner's case, I think the US is put in a very difficult position because we are a marijuana prohibitionist. We lock people up for simple marijuana cases and arrest people each and every single day in a racially disproportionate way, so who are we to point a finger?
It makes our diplomatic efforts, I think, that much harder when we're doing the exact same thing. I can't help but think that, yes, that Brittney Griner's case must have had some impact here. I can't confirm that, but just putting two to two together, I thought there was a connection.
Melissa Harris-Perry: Maritza Perez is the Director of the Office of Federal Affairs at the Drug Policy Alliance. Thanks so much for being here, Maritza.
Maritza Perez: Thank you so much for having me.
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