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Democrats urge Biden administration to deschedule marijuana (www.nbcnews.com)

submitted 6 months ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/politics@lemmy.world

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12 Senate Democrats, including Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, urged the DEA in a letter to remove marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act altogether.

Senate Democrats are putting new pressure on the Biden administration to ease federal restrictions on marijuana in a new letter to the Drug Enforcement Administration on Tuesday as it considers rescheduling cannabis after it was federally classified more than five decades ago.

The Department of Health and Human Services formally recommended in August that the DEA move the drug from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act, or CSA, prompting a monthslong review, which continues.

The letter, from 12 senators led by Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and John Fetterman, D-Pa., and signed by Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., goes further.

“The case for removing marijuana from Schedule I is overwhelming. The DEA should do so by removing cannabis from the CSA altogether, rather than simply placing it in a lower schedule,” the senators wrote in the letter, first obtained by NBC News.

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[-] 18_24_61_b_17_17_4@lemmy.world 88 points 6 months ago

Just fucking legalize it federally already. Rake in the taxes, destroy the black market, and let's be done with this.

[-] dalekcaan@lemm.ee 19 points 6 months ago

Seriously, it's so fucking stupid we're still arguing about this. The majority of people have been cool with weed for decades now.

[-] crusa187@lemmy.ml 18 points 6 months ago

Now now let’s not be too hasty - those private prisons aren’t going to fill themselves.

[-] Death_Equity@lemmy.world 1 points 6 months ago

The problem in a taxed legal market is that the black market can still undercut the legal market if the taxes are too great. If the taxes are kept low enough and the supply is kept high enough, then the black market can't compete with the quality legal stuff.

The other issue is states that keep it illegal. Illegal states still have demand so black market growers working out of legal states can supply black markets in other states. There really is no answer to that other than mandated legalization, which isn't a thing without a USSC ruling that illegal marijuana is unconstitutional, which would cause all sorts of other legal challenges to illegal substance laws.

Even in legal states a black market still operates at a smaller scale depending on how dispensaries handle IDs. If the dispensaries are required to scan IDs to verify authenticity, it logs the ID unless there is a law that requires that no record of the ID is kept. People may not be comfortable or willing to have their ID logged at a dispensary due to legal or professional concerns given the frequent government overreach/abuse, frequent data breeches, or the individual's criminality.

Depending on what you or the government may consider a black market, that may include an adult selling another adult a few grams from their legally purchased stash just as it would include a guy growing and selling pounds without a license/permit/taxation. The "black market" is only "black" because the government doesn't control it.

Federal legalization is a fantastic thing that should be done, but it would not destroy the criminal black market as much as one would hope.

this post was submitted on 31 Jan 2024

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