Joshua Paschal

I was not going to post on here again anytime soon due to being busy with the end of semester crunch (I’ve also been lazy about the length/detail in recent posts, so I want to start doing less frequent but more engaging posts), but today’s vote in the House of Representatives has prompted me to do the following write-up. In case it is not widely known, the Democratic controlled out passed a decriminalization of marijuana measure today.

See: https://www.npr.org/2020/12/04/942949288/house-approves-decriminalizing-marijuana-bill-to-stall-in-senate

As the NPR article notes, this bill is expected to stall and die in the Senate. What I want to discuss today is why that is utter bull dung.

Support for legalization of marijuana has skyrocketed in recent years, including a majority of Republicans.

By rejecting the measure passed in the House full-stop, the GOP Senate would be plainly rejecting what the people overwhelmingly want. The measure about “not supporting the immediate release” is not a sufficient excuse: if that is truly the GOP’s concern, they can pass an altered bill in the Senate excluding such a provision.

Also, it should be noted marijuana is decriminalized in the city of D.C., and public use there is widespread. It is a clear case of nullification by selective enforcement: federal enforcement centers around the widespread destruction of marijuana farms. The DEA explicitly mentions this as one of their central missions:

See: https://www.dea.gov/domestic-cannabis-suppression-eradication-program

But the war on drugs is a widely unpopular and wildly unsuccessful measure. Even with our brutal criminalization of drugs-at-large, the opioid pandemic continues to rage on and get worse. It is not as though drug enforcement is lacking in the United States: it is largely the fault of legal pharmaceuticals that opioids are so abused. Targeting the illicit use to illegal opioids disproportionately burdens the lowest income bracket of opioid abusers without offering them the public health assistance that has been proven more effective. Portugal, for example, has decriminalized drug use while still penalizing illegal distribution.

See: https://drugpolicy.org/sites/default/files/dpa-drug-decriminalization-portugal-health-human-centered-approach_0.pdf

But back to marijuana: the use of medical marijuana has also been shown as a serious alternative to the use of opioids. If the GOP was serious about amending the crisis disproportionately affecting their states, the federal decriminalization of marijuana should be first on their list! McConnell’s Senate has the responsibility of at least passing an adjacent bill that advances federal decriminalization: no excuse can be given should they fail in the coming days to do at least that.

Some further points to conclude. This measure passing in the House indicates marijuana liberalization is almost guaranteed under the Biden administration, even if Biden himself has expressed skepticism about decriminalization. Also, should McConnell stall the matter out, the Georgia run-off elections become all that more important–however, Biden could explicitly decide to declare a non-enforcement of current marijuana laws as head of the executive (DEA specifically).

I will leave it at that for now, let me know what you think.

P.S. Some people, foolish, somehow continue to confuse the decriminalization of use with the decriminalization of sale and distribution. Such a basic mistake falls into the exact dumb semantic certain groups use to scare their listeners into fearing the scary ol’ stoners–it is directly traceable back to the 1960s drug liberalization movement. Gotta hate those hippies: they’re gonna give all your kids acid and dope! It is absolutely silly and completely derails the central point: the injustice of criminalizing drugs (especially problematic given marijuana was criminalized due to xenophobia and lobbying by big alcohol and big nicotine). Even if one opposes the legalization of drugs, the matter should be civil–like parking tickets–not criminal (jail and prison!).