Biden ‘Smokes’ Trump On Marijuana Policy, Campaign Says After President’s Rescheduling Announcement

President Joe Biden “smokes” former President Donald Trump on marijuana policy, his reelection campaign said short after the administration announced a historic cannabis rescheduling action on Thursday.

In an email blast that was sent out hours after the president announced the “monumental” step to reclassify cannabis, his campaign highlighted the “stark contrast with the Trump administration’s failures and broken promises on criminal justice reform and marijuana.”

Specifically, it compared the Biden administration’s push to move marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) with the elimination of federal cannabis enforcement guidance under Trump.

“Trump and his administration took marijuana reform backwards, withdrawing guidelines to limit prosecutions of marijuana offenses that were legal under state laws,” the campaign said, repeating a point it made last month in a separate email when it promoted Vice President Kamala Harris’s roundtable event with cannabis pardon recipients at the White House.

One more big step toward fixing our failed approach to marijuana. pic.twitter.com/Uc9qepehrf

— President Biden (@POTUS) May 16, 2024

“It’s simple, Joe Biden smokes sleepy Don on delivering for the American people,” Biden-Harris 2024 Spokesperson James Singer said. “After four years of all talk, all failure from Donald Trump, Joe Biden is keeping his promise on marijuana policy, moving America forward, and making America safer.”

“Donald Trump was wrong on marijuana policy and made America less safe, hurting young people and communities of color,” he said. “Voters can’t afford the broken promises and dangerous failures of a second Trump term.”

It should be noted, however, that while rescheduling marijuana was among Biden’s 2020 campaign promises, advocates remain frustrated that he’s yet to federally decriminalize cannabis as he also pledged to do.

And while the campaign is criticizing the rescission of the federal marijuana guidance, the Justice Department under Biden has yet to reissue any updated guidance—despite Attorney General Merrick Garland saying in June 2022 that DOJ would be addressing the issue “in the days ahead.”

When Garland was asked about the issue during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing last March, he said that it was “fair to expect” that the updated marijuana policy would be “very close to what was done in the Cole Memorandum.”

Two Democratic congressional lawmakers said in a letter to Garland in March that it is “unacceptable” that the Justice Department has yet to reissue the federal marijuana enforcement guidance to discourage interference in state cannabis programs, leaving Americans in a “legal limbo” despite promises to update the policy.

In any case, the Biden campaign’s choice to once again draw the cannabis contrast with the presumptive 2024 GOP presidential nominee is notable, representing one of the latest examples of how the president is aiming to leverage the popularity of marijuana reform ahead of the November election.

In the day since Biden made the rescheduling announcement, he and Harris have repeated touted the action on social media.

No one should be jailed for simply using or possessing marijuana.

— President Biden (@POTUS) May 17, 2024

“No one should be jailed for simply using or possessing marijuana,” Biden reiterated on Friday.

No one should go to jail for smoking weed.

We have pardoned tens of thousands of people with federal convictions for simple marijuana possession.

— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) May 16, 2024

Harris also noted the president’s mass pardons for people who’ve committed federal cannabis possession offenses.

Marijuana is currently classified on the same level as heroin and more dangerous than fentanyl.

Our administration is finally changing that. pic.twitter.com/VfpBXx3xZX

— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) May 16, 2024

Meanwhile, the Justice Department also announced on Thursday that Attorney General Merrick Garland had officially initiated the formal rulemaking process, submitting the proposed rescheduling rule to the Federal Register to begin a 60-day public comment period.

The action is being largely praised as a historic step in the right direction, with the federal government recognizing for the first time in over 50 years that cannabis has accepted medical value and a lower abuse potential than other drugs in Schedule I such as heroin.

Read the full Biden campaign email below:

Biden Smokes Trump on Marijuana Policy

In the 2020 campaign and as President, Joe Biden has said no one should be in jail just for using or possessing marijuana.

President Biden is keeping his promise, delivering a historic victory for criminal justice and common-sense marijuana policy across America.

Today, the Biden administration reclassified marijuana from a Schedule I to a Schedule III drug, moving marijuana out of a classification higher than fentanyl and methamphetamine and removing long standing barriers to critical research into medical benefits of marijuana that could help veterans, seniors, and people with chronic illnesses.

Additional note: Under Joe Biden, violent crime is near a 50-year low and murders are plummeting in major cities.

This is in stark contrast with the Trump administration’s failures and broken promises on criminal justice reform and marijuana:

• • Broken Promises on Marijuana: Trump and his administration took marijuana reform backwards, withdrawing guidelines to limit prosecutions of marijuana offenses that were legal under state laws.
  • Crime Went Up: Under Trump, America was less safe. In 2020, violent crime rose and murder increased 29.4%.
  • Police Reform Failures: Trump called for police officers to shoot shoplifters. As president, he inflamed tensions between the police and the communities they serve. He insisted police departments should use “stop and frisk” and sought to block local police reform. His administration also reduced oversight of police departments and repeatedly proposed cutting funding for local police departments and combating illicit drug flows.

Trump’s Project 2025 agenda: Pardon violent January 6 rioters while worsening racial inequity in the justice system, prosecute his political opponents, and criminalize abortion.

The following is a statement from Biden-Harris 2024 Spokesperson James Singer:

“It’s simple, Joe Biden smokes sleepy Don on delivering for the American people. After four years of all talk, all failure from Donald Trump, Joe Biden is keeping his promise on marijuana policy, moving America forward, and making America safer.

“Donald Trump was wrong on marijuana policy and made America less safe, hurting young people and communities of color. Voters can’t afford the broken promises and dangerous failures of a second Trump term.”

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Paid for by Biden for President

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