President Joe Biden has planned to pardon marijuana charges for thousands convicted.
This Thursday Joe Biden has pardoned thousands of convicted with marijuana charges under federal law. These pardons will clear everyone with simple possession charges starting in 1970. Government officials have determined approximately 6,500 have been arrested from 1992 to 2021. The pardons will not include people convicted of selling or distributing. There are also no longer people serving time in federal prison with only marijauna charges.
This act of President Biden comes shortly before midterm elections hoping it will help sway the democratic party to vote once again. President Biden feels that it doesn’t make sense to criminalize people in this situation, “Sending people to jail for possessing marijuana has upended too many lives, for conduct that is legal in many states.” Although Biden limited the pardon to make sure we continue to try and control underage drug use and drug trafficking.
These pardons begin to align themselves with state governments putting them on the same page already eliminating simple marijuana punishments. Minority advocacy groups have been pressuring President Biden to follow up on his commitment to reforming inequities built into the criminal justice system and this is a good start for him. Inimai Chettiar, the federal director of the Justice Action Network said this about the president’s decision, “a really good step” and is looking forward to how Biden evaluates future marijauna crimes.
Starting Thursday the federal government will stop charging people for single possession charges. Marijuana is legal in about 20 states but there are still plenty that have it considered fully illegal. Studies show that whites and blacks have the same amount of usage but blacks are criminalized three times higher than whites according to A.C.L.U. data from 2010 to 2018. Majority of marijuana arrests fall under the jurisdiction of individual states, but the crime has historically taken accountability for about a third of nationwide drug possession arrests by state and federal officials.