White House Again Touts Biden-Harris Marijuana Actions, But With Less Lofty Rhetoric In Light Of Rescheduling Delay

With weeks left until the election, the White House is again promoting the Biden-Harris administration’s marijuana policy accomplishments—though it is using less lofty language to describe the actions this time, rather than broadly claiming premature victory in “ending” the country’s “failed approach” to cannabis, as it has in the past.

The White House on Friday shared an updated webpage that provides an overview of various successes the administration is claiming credit for, including a section that’s now titled “Issued a Review to Reschedule Marijuana” that also mentions Biden’s mass cannabis pardons.

“President Biden issued categorical pardons of federal offenses of simple possession of marijuana—lifting barriers to housing, employment, educational opportunities, and more for thousands of Americans,” it says. “He has called on called on governors to follow his lead and issue similar pardons for state offenses.”

“To help remedy our country’s failed approach to marijuana, including racial disparities, the Administration also launched the process to reclassify marijuana under federal law,” it continues. “Marijuana is currently a Schedule I drug, higher than the classification for fentanyl and methamphetamine—drugs driving our nation’s overdose epidemic.”

The new, more limited rhetoric may be due to an acknowledgment that the administration’s marijuana rescheduling proposal now appears unlikely to be finalized before the next president takes office due to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) scheduling a public hearing on the matter for after Election Day.

Receipts. Proof. Timeline. Screenshots.https://t.co/fcI9pyRN6O pic.twitter.com/VqOiwzOKlV

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) September 20, 2024

Other than the scaled-back title, the revised language is largely consistent with the earlier cannabis section that the White House featured on its record page that launched in 2022, except that the previous version also mentioned LSD as an example of a Schedule I drug and did not specifically discuss the overdose epidemic. The prior passage also excluded the new brief analysis about collateral consequences of having a cannabis record.

Via White House.

Here’s the text of the initial marijuana section:

“To help remedy our country’s failed approach to marijuana, including racial disparities, the President pardoned all prior federal offenses of simple marijuana possession and urged governors to do the same. The Administration is also initiating the process to review how marijuana is scheduled under federal law. Marijuana is currently a Schedule I drug, the same classification as for heroin and LSD and even higher than for fentanyl and methamphetamine.”

It’s perhaps more notable that the title of the cannabis sections has changed, no longer asserting that the administration is “Ending our Failed Approach to Marijuana.”

Via White House.

President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have faced some pushback from advocates over that suggestion, especially considering that the rescheduling process is still underway and it’s not guaranteed that marijuana will ultimately be moved to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) as the Justice Department has proposed following a multi-agency review. What’s more, a Schedule III reclassification would not federally legalize cannabis.

Another nuance to the newest version of the section: While the White House is insinuating that Biden’s mass pardons removed barriers to “housing, employment, educational opportunities, and more,” that’s not strictly true. Presidential pardons represent formal forgiveness, but as the president has more recently acknowledged, they did not expunge prior records, so it’s possible that collateral consequences could persist even with the symbolic relief.

Meanwhile, Biden also recently discussed his administration’s cannabis actions and reiterated his belief that criminalization over minor marijuana offenses is an outdated policy during a speech at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s (CBCF) 2024 Phoenix Awards Dinner.

“We started the process of reclassifying marijuana and pardoned thousands of convictions from mere possession,” he said, “because no one should be jailed for simply using marijuana or have a barrier to jobs, housing, loans or other opportunities because of that.”

While the president has repeatedly taken credit for the marijuana pardon actions he’s taken, it’s relatively rare to hear him speak about the rescheduling push. He addressed it when the proposed rule was released, and also in a proclamation this year designating April as “Second Chance Month,” but he’s generally focused on the separate clemency work over recent years.

This time, the president also made clear that the rescheduling process isn’t over. And with the DEA hearing on the proposed rule set for December, that almost certainly means he will not see the policy implemented while he’s in the White House, assuming DEA ultimately approves it at all. In the lead-up to the Justice Department’s Schedule III announcement in March, many speculated that a rule would be finalized before the November election to give the Biden-Harris campaign a win on a popular issue.

Biden’s comments reflect a reality about the current status of the rescheduling process that was missed in a post by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) in July. DNC played up the Biden-Harris administration’s marijuana reform platform, but it also got some criticism after suggesting that cannabis had already been rescheduled and that the country’s “failed approach” to marijuana had ended.

Harris also faced criticism from advocates in February after she similarly claimed that the administration had “changed federal marijuana policy” in a video meant to appeal to young voters. But since becoming the party’s 2024 nominee, she’s been notably silent on the issue, even as former President Donald Trump promotes his newfound support for certain reforms.

Harris privately called for federal legalization as recently as March, and she sponsored a bill to end prohibition during her time in the Senate. While she hasn’t always backed reform and actively opposed a California legalization ballot initiative as the state’s attorney general, it still stands to reason that she’d be the most likely candidate to forcefully push for a federal policy change. Yet, so far since her nomination, voters haven’t heard any specific details about her marijuana platform.

In that vacuum, the GOP nominee former President Donald Trump has, perhaps paradoxically, has emerged as a champion of reform, making headlines recently for coming out in favor of rescheduling, industry banking access and a Florida marijuana legalization initiative that will appear on the state’s November ballot.

Not everyone is convinced that Trump sincerely supports the cannabis reform policies he’s started promoting, with bipartisan lawmakers such as Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Andy Harris (R-MD) chalking the former president’s recent cannabis pivot a campaign ploy to attract voters, for example.

Harris’s campaign has similarly accused Trump of lying about his support for marijuana reform, stating that his “blatant pandering” runs counter to his administration’s record on cannabis.

While the campaign has been willing to call out Trump on his marijuana platform, however, it has so far declined to detail the Democratic nominee’s own position. Advocates have also taken notice that a new, long-awaited issues page launched by the Harris campaign omits any mention of marijuana policy reform despite her record promoting comprehensive legalization.

The prior Biden-Harris campaign had also made several prior attempts to contrast the administration’s marijuana reform actions with those of the Trump administration, emphasizing the role that then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions played in rescinding the cannabis enforcement guidance.

Following Trump’s announcement of support for the Florida cannabis legalization ballot measure, the campaign for Harris has worked to remind voters that while in office, the former president “took marijuana reform backwards.”

In a memo from a senior campaign spokesperson, the Harris campaign accused Trump of “brazen flip flops” on cannabis. The Democratic campaign says it’s one of the Republican former president’s “several bewildering ‘policy proposals’ that deserve real scrutiny.”

“On issue after issue, Trump is saying one thing after having done another,” the memo says. “For example: As a candidate in 2024, he suggests he is for decriminalizing marijuana – but as President, his own Justice Department cracked down on marijuana offenses.”

Trump’s latest marijuana post follows up on one he made last month in which he indicated—but did not explicitly say—he supported Amendment 3 in Florida. The earlier comments predicted that Florida voters would approve the cannabis measure and generally discussed the benefits of legalization, but left some observers wanting more clarity on the former president’s position on the specific state initiative.

Trump also recently discussed the medical benefits of cannabis and said legalization would be “very good” for Florida in an interview with Lex Fridman.

Last month at a press conference, Trump told a reporter that he’s starting to “agree a lot more” that people should not be criminalized over marijuana given that it’s “being legalized all over the country”—adding that he would “fairly soon” reveal his position on the Florida ballot measure.

But some observers see a key opportunity with both major party nominees aligned on the need for cannabis reform for the first time.

In an interview with Marijuana Moment, Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) said Trump’s recent remarks “shows that now everybody agrees—even Donald Trump.”

The Congressional Cannabis Caucus co-chair said in a letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) on Monday that the former president’s shift on the issue—as well as recently unearthed comments from former President Richard Nixon conceding that marijuana is “not particularly dangerous”—should be followed up with floor votes on cannabis reform legislation.

Meanwhile, longtime ally and GOP political operative Roger Stone, who is also a Florida resident and supports the legalization proposal, separately told Marijuana Moment that if Trump did ultimately endorse the measure it would “guarantee victory.”

Meanwhile, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) released a report last month explaining that federal marijuana rescheduling is “unlikely” to improve banking access for state-legal cannabis businesses. But Blumenauer similarly argued that the reclassification move, when it is enacted, could have a political effect that spurs action on the separate marijuana banking legislation.

Newly Discovered Nixon Tapes Expose The Lies Behind Marijuana’s Criminalization (Op-Ed)