5 ms·

I'm not constitutional lawyer, but those sound like things only the legislature can do, which is beyond his control. The things he has done are things the execu

I'm not constitutional lawyer, but those sound like things only the legislature can do, which is beyond his control. The things he has done are things the executive has in it's power.

kibwen 4y ago
Fully legalizing marijuana does require legislative action. The executive might have the power to ask the FDA to remove it from schedule 1, but by international treaty (ratified by the legislature) the US is required to enforce restrictions against marijuna according to the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, the 1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances, and the 1988 Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances.
- 9wzYQbTYsAIc 4y ago
  > but by international treaty (ratified by the legislature) the US is required to enforce restrictions against marijuna Except when contradicted by the constitution or established legal process as a Party state.
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  > but by international treaty (ratified by the legislature) The Senate alone. > Fully legalizing marijuana does require legislative action Rescheduling it subject to treaty restrictions from treaties in force, but Presidents can and have withdrawn the US from treaties without Congressional action. This may be unlikely in this case, but does not exceed executive power. Amending the treaty requires a bunch of other countries plus the Senate, and modifying the status of marijuana inconsistent with the treaty while it is in force would take a change in law by Congress (but would violate the treaty.) Note that the current treaty status only requires medical use / prescription requirements, so it could be substantially less restricted than it currently is federally without running into treaty issues.
  - kibwen 4y ago
    > Presidents can and have withdrawn the US from treaties without Congressional action. This may be unlikely in this case, but does not exceed executive power. Can you give an example? I am not aware of any authority granted to the executive to override the legislature in this way. Is there an explicitly granted loophole or are these cases of executive overreach?
    - sgjohnson 4y ago
      Remember the time Trump withdrew from the World Health Organization?
      - kibwen 4y ago
        Trump certainly made a lot of noise about threatening to, but did he ever actually do that?
        boomboomsubban 4y ago
        Kinda. The process takes too long for him to have withdrawn, but he formally started the process and Biden canceled it. https://www.axios.com/2020/07/07/trump-withdraw-world-health-organization https://www.axios.com/2020/07/07/trump-withdraw-world-health...
    - elliekelly 4y ago
      Trump pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Comprehensive_Plan_of_Action https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Comprehensive_Plan_of_...
      - SaintGhurka 4y ago
        The Iran nuclear deal wasn't a treaty, which is why he was able to pull out.
- 9wzYQbTYsAIc 4y ago
  That is incorrect, according to Congress, themselves: “Both Congress and the Administration have the ability to alter marijuana’s status as a Schedule I substance.” https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IN/IN11204 https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IN/IN11204
  - kibwen 4y ago
    I mention the executive branch's ability (via the FDA) to remove it from schedule 1, but that's not the same thing as complete descheduling.
    - 9wzYQbTYsAIc 4y ago
      They also have the ability to initiate or request that proceedings initiate under the Convention to have cannabis deleted from the schedules. edit: but apparently, besides that or whatever other options the executive branch review discovers, or whatever the judicial branch comes up with, you are right https://businessofcannabis.com/2022/09/16/us-court-of-appeals-says-descheduling-cannabis-is-up-to-congress/ https://businessofcannabis.com/2022/09/16/us-court-of-appeal...
pessimizer 4y ago
I have a firm belief that presidents should be accomplishing these things in the legislature through party discipline and direct appeals to voters to help him rid himself of specific legislators, of either party, that are standing in the way of things that have overwhelming popular support. Instead, they just throw treats to their base when they're in trouble. Treats that are written on water. If I hear another thing about the Dreamers. People keep saying that he can't do anything because he's not a dictator. He can't do anything because he doesn't believe in it, and even if he did doesn't have any ideological standards for his Congressional party that would ever get him majority support for anything that doesn't have lobbying checks behind it.
- lovich 4y ago
  He did? Just not on this point or student loans. The inflation reduction act had been blocked in the senate by his own party defectors and he managed to get them to flip in a last minute political coup on what the republicans thought was going to happen
- danaris 4y ago
  > presidents should be accomplishing these things in the legislature through party discipline and direct appeals to voters to help him rid himself of specific legislators And how, exactly, do you propose he do that, given the current political landscape in the US? Congress is gridlocked. Incumbents almost never lose their seats. The people who care enough to vote and support the issues are already voting as hard as they can. This announcement? This is him doing what he can, both in terms of his legal ability to change things, as the chief executive, and in terms of using the bully pulpit, making clear where his and his administrations' priorities lie. Basically, it sounds like you're saying "if the President can't force the legislation he wants to materialize and get through a Congress that is historically dysfunctional, that means he doesn't really care about the issue."
  - pessimizer 4y ago
    > And how, exactly, do you propose he do that, given the current political landscape in the US? This can always be an excuse. Things can't be done because they can't be done. The fact is that he's giving speeches about how much he hates China and Russia, and not about legalizing pot. He's also one of the engineers of the shitty situation that we're in, he's had an abusively and militantly anti-drug pol his entire career, so I'm not ever going to be convinced by this woe is me lark. He's not doing his best, he's being pushed (if he's even being adequately informed.) The best case scenario is that some people in his administration think that drug law reform is important, either morally or politically. There is no scenario in which the actual Biden is sympathetic towards drug users, or regretful of the lives that he personally contributed to ruining over drugs. > how, exactly, do you propose he do that The answer is do politics. If he doesn't know how to do politics, it would be better if someone else were doing the job.
whoooooo123 4y ago
Student debt forgiveness is also something that only the legislature can do - Nancy Pelosi admitted this as recently as a year ago. Biden doesn't have the power to forgive student debt by himself, but he's doing it anyway, it's blatantly illegal and no-one cares.

I'm not constitutional lawyer, but those sound like things only the legislature can do, which is beyond his control. The things he has done are things the executive has in it's power.

kibwen 4y ago

Fully legalizing marijuana does require legislative action. The executive might have the power to ask the FDA to remove it from schedule 1, but by international treaty (ratified by the legislature) the US is required to enforce restrictions against marijuna according to the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, the 1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances, and the 1988 Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances.

9wzYQbTYsAIc 4y ago
> but by international treaty (ratified by the legislature) the US is required to enforce restrictions against marijuna Except when contradicted by the constitution or established legal process as a Party state.
dragonwriter 4y ago
> but by international treaty (ratified by the legislature) The Senate alone. > Fully legalizing marijuana does require legislative action Rescheduling it subject to treaty restrictions from treaties in force, but Presidents can and have withdrawn the US from treaties without Congressional action. This may be unlikely in this case, but does not exceed executive power. Amending the treaty requires a bunch of other countries plus the Senate, and modifying the status of marijuana inconsistent with the treaty while it is in force would take a change in law by Congress (but would violate the treaty.) Note that the current treaty status only requires medical use / prescription requirements, so it could be substantially less restricted than it currently is federally without running into treaty issues.
- kibwen 4y ago
  > Presidents can and have withdrawn the US from treaties without Congressional action. This may be unlikely in this case, but does not exceed executive power. Can you give an example? I am not aware of any authority granted to the executive to override the legislature in this way. Is there an explicitly granted loophole or are these cases of executive overreach?
  - sgjohnson 4y ago
    Remember the time Trump withdrew from the World Health Organization?
    - kibwen 4y ago
      Trump certainly made a lot of noise about threatening to, but did he ever actually do that?
      - boomboomsubban 4y ago
        Kinda. The process takes too long for him to have withdrawn, but he formally started the process and Biden canceled it. https://www.axios.com/2020/07/07/trump-withdraw-world-health-organization https://www.axios.com/2020/07/07/trump-withdraw-world-health...
  - elliekelly 4y ago
    Trump pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Comprehensive_Plan_of_Action https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Comprehensive_Plan_of_...
    - SaintGhurka 4y ago
      The Iran nuclear deal wasn't a treaty, which is why he was able to pull out.
9wzYQbTYsAIc 4y ago
That is incorrect, according to Congress, themselves: “Both Congress and the Administration have the ability to alter marijuana’s status as a Schedule I substance.” https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IN/IN11204 https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IN/IN11204
- kibwen 4y ago
  I mention the executive branch's ability (via the FDA) to remove it from schedule 1, but that's not the same thing as complete descheduling.
  - 9wzYQbTYsAIc 4y ago
    They also have the ability to initiate or request that proceedings initiate under the Convention to have cannabis deleted from the schedules. edit: but apparently, besides that or whatever other options the executive branch review discovers, or whatever the judicial branch comes up with, you are right https://businessofcannabis.com/2022/09/16/us-court-of-appeals-says-descheduling-cannabis-is-up-to-congress/ https://businessofcannabis.com/2022/09/16/us-court-of-appeal...

pessimizer 4y ago

I have a firm belief that presidents should be accomplishing these things in the legislature through party discipline and direct appeals to voters to help him rid himself of specific legislators, of either party, that are standing in the way of things that have overwhelming popular support. Instead, they just throw treats to their base when they're in trouble. Treats that are written on water. If I hear another thing about the Dreamers. People keep saying that he can't do anything because he's not a dictator. He can't do anything because he doesn't believe in it, and even if he did doesn't have any ideological standards for his Congressional party that would ever get him majority support for anything that doesn't have lobbying checks behind it.

lovich 4y ago
He did? Just not on this point or student loans. The inflation reduction act had been blocked in the senate by his own party defectors and he managed to get them to flip in a last minute political coup on what the republicans thought was going to happen
danaris 4y ago
> presidents should be accomplishing these things in the legislature through party discipline and direct appeals to voters to help him rid himself of specific legislators And how, exactly, do you propose he do that, given the current political landscape in the US? Congress is gridlocked. Incumbents almost never lose their seats. The people who care enough to vote and support the issues are already voting as hard as they can. This announcement? This is him doing what he can, both in terms of his legal ability to change things, as the chief executive, and in terms of using the bully pulpit, making clear where his and his administrations' priorities lie. Basically, it sounds like you're saying "if the President can't force the legislation he wants to materialize and get through a Congress that is historically dysfunctional, that means he doesn't really care about the issue."
- pessimizer 4y ago
  > And how, exactly, do you propose he do that, given the current political landscape in the US? This can always be an excuse. Things can't be done because they can't be done. The fact is that he's giving speeches about how much he hates China and Russia, and not about legalizing pot. He's also one of the engineers of the shitty situation that we're in, he's had an abusively and militantly anti-drug pol his entire career, so I'm not ever going to be convinced by this woe is me lark. He's not doing his best, he's being pushed (if he's even being adequately informed.) The best case scenario is that some people in his administration think that drug law reform is important, either morally or politically. There is no scenario in which the actual Biden is sympathetic towards drug users, or regretful of the lives that he personally contributed to ruining over drugs. > how, exactly, do you propose he do that The answer is do politics. If he doesn't know how to do politics, it would be better if someone else were doing the job.

whoooooo123 4y ago

Student debt forgiveness is also something that only the legislature can do - Nancy Pelosi admitted this as recently as a year ago. Biden doesn't have the power to forgive student debt by himself, but he's doing it anyway, it's blatantly illegal and no-one cares.