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So some people are upset that this happening in an election season, even though they support it? This was a lawful and thoughtful exercise of presidential powe

So some people are upset that this happening in an election season, even though they support it? This was a lawful and thoughtful exercise of presidential power that helps some people convicted of something that really shouldn't be criminalized. It could also potentially help the Democratic Party in the upcoming election. But if you believe in what the Democratic Party is trying to do for the country, that's not a bad thing. There's no corruption in doing popular things that can help get people in your party elected. That's just good governance and acting according to the will of the voters. The majority of people in the US, 60%, and even a plurality of Republicans support decriminalizing recreational cannabis federally. The support for medicinal cannabis, possible if Cannabis wasn't scheduled as it currently is, is even higher. Recreational: https://www.benzinga.com/markets/cannabis/22/10/29166025/new-poll-majority-of-u-s-voters-support-federal-marijuana-legalization-again-but-do-politicians- https://www.benzinga.com/markets/cannabis/22/10/29166025/new... Medical: https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/2022-04/Cannabis%20Topline%202022.pdf https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/...

rayiner 4y ago
This. I think marijuana should be illegal (but at the state level) but this seems to me like a smart move politically. Doing popular things to get votes is a good thing. That’s kind of the whole theory of democracy.
- WirelessGigabit 4y ago
  Why should it be illegal? I can just order stuff online here, and get some gummies delivered. Doesn’t bother anybody.
  - dbrueck 4y ago
    > Why should it be illegal? For the same reasons any other substance is regulated, because it can affect other people, see e.g. https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/newsroom/feature/marijuana-and-driving.html https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/newsroom/feature/marijuana-and-dri....
    - pstuart 4y ago
      That's the public excuse. The reality is that it's a powerful tool to oppress "others" -- https://www.aclu.org/post-to-social/war-drugs-racist https://www.aclu.org/post-to-social/war-drugs-racist This is well documented, the above link is one of many.
      - dbrueck 4y ago
        It doesn't have to be an either-or. To be clear, I'm not personally advocating that marijuana be illegal, just answering the earlier comment that was arguing that use of marijuana affects nobody but the user, which can sometimes be true but is definitely not always true, and that is one of the main the bases for substance regulation. The fact that how substances are regulated is irregular and inconsistent is a separate issue from whether or not it's ok for a society to regulate some substances.
        JAlexoid 4y ago
        Having neurosyphilis will affect "others". The bar for "affects others" is extremely low in society. Unless there's a very clear study, that a certain substance will cause an average human being to be aggressive, belligerent and violent - there's hardly a case for "affects others".
        galangalalgol 4y ago
        What do you mean by irregular or inconsistent? That some substances extremely harmful to society are loosely regulated while mostly innocuous ones put people in prison? That is troublesome. But if you mean variation by state, I think that is normal and should be moreso. I like my content labels, but I don't understand why the protection of interstate commerce means the FDA gets to tell my doctor which drugs they can prescribe for which conditions. Federal prohibition of alcohol required an amendment. The federal prohibition on any substance for any reason should require the same. There are plenty of items that are contraband in one state but not the next, that is no reason to ignore explicit limits on federal power.
        pstuart 4y ago
  - steve76 4y ago
  - rayiner 4y ago
    I don’t believe in the concept of “victimless crimes.” Society should enforce moral standards and help people make good decisions. Why do you need marijuana? It doesn’t seem necessary to me. Maybe for legitimate medical uses. Edit: To respond to the dead comment below, I think banning alcohol would probably be a good thing. Alcohol exacts a terrible toll on women and children. It’s no surprise, then, that the first thing American women did with the right to vote was ban alcohol. Alcohol is banned in my home country, and many others. That said, I’m afraid it’s too deeply embedded in western culture to make banning alcohol a realistic possibility. But just because that’s true, how does that justify legalizing and normalizing the new vice of drug use?
    - retIghke 4y ago
      This means you also support the prohibition of alcohol, does it not?
    - fknorangesite 4y ago
      > I think banning alcohol would probably be a good thing. Yes, after all this worked so well the first time.
      - rayiner 4y ago
        As I said, it might be impractical in a society where alcohol use and abuse is deeply ingrained in the culture. It works just fine in for example Muslim countries where there are social taboos to back up the law. My point is that, even if alcohol prohibition is impractical in a western country, that’s not a reason to normalize and legalize a new and different vice.
    - OkayPhysicist 4y ago
      What moral standards? And more interestingly whose moral standards? What moral rule is violated by allowing vice, or what utility function is reduced? If you don't establish such axiomatic foundations in conversations about morality, you're doomed to just talk past each other. For example, I treat free will and empathy as axiomatic goods. I don't like being told what to do, and I don't like harm coming to others. By extension, others having their free will suppressed is bad, but not axiomatically bad in so much as it can cause greater suppression of the freedom of others. Under such a framework, it should be pretty obvious why I would oppose prohibition. If someone does something that in of itself does not harm others, then that thing is at worst ethically neutral, and thus there is no good to offset the ethical evil of interceding in them doing it. On the other hand, if someone is attempting to kill someone else, or enslave someone else, or otherwise suppress the other's ability to be free, then preventing that by any means necessary is a moral good. So what are YOUR axioms that you are operating off of? What base assumptions underlie your "moral standards"?
- poopnugget 4y ago
thrown_22 4y ago
> So some people are upset that this happening in an election season, even though they support it? Why wasn't it done 10 years ago?
- ukyrgf 4y ago
  My boss does this every day. Instead of thanks for getting it done, it's why wasn't this done last year? Just an exhausting way to live life.
  - thrown_22 4y ago
    - PuppyTailWags 4y ago
      No, the reason why Roe vs Wade is gone is because of a focused, well-funded mobilization campaign in legal interpretation, legal scholarship, and funding of judge careers in order to turn the judicial system into a tool for subverting popular progressive sentiment.
      - DontchaKnowit 4y ago
        Interesting, because the way I see it, almost the exact same thing can be said of the original roe v wade decision- the result of a focused campaign for promoting progressive sentiment.
        PuppyTailWags 4y ago
        No, there doesn't exist anything comparable to the infrastructure of the conservative judicial system. Wealthy progressive individuals hiding behind multiple corporations were not writing affidavits to roe v wade pretending to be multiple people. That strategy didn't exist until much later. Similarly, the decades-long funding of legal scholarship to prevent progressive legislation has no progressive comparison of equal maturity. There is no comparison to the size and influence of the Federalist Society in the funding of the careers of politically-motivated law students into politically-biased judges.
perihelions 4y ago
- "So some people are upset that this happening in an election season, even though they support it?" If it were a sincere and principled choice, he would have done it in his first week in office. Like Carter with his Vietnam pardons in January 1977. It's difficult not to become cynical about electoral politics today, when politicians have become so transparently cynical about your vote.
- tolmasky 4y ago
  Biden signed 30 executive orders his first week in office. In everything from climate change to the pandemic. Not sure anyone remembers but that was a big deal back in 2021. We’ve wanted this for 50 years, Biden getting it done in under 2 years isn’t too shabby. Was it for political reasons? I hope so! It would be nice for the politically expedient thing to start lining up with what’s actually right and what people want for a change. As Milton Friedman used to say, “I do not believe that the solution to our problem is simply to elect the right people. The important thing is to establish a political climate of opinion which will make it politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing.”
  - perihelions 4y ago
    - latch 4y ago
      Honest question: isn't it a stroke of the pen that then must be executed? The proclamation is a very short read and what I got from it is that now things need to be "administered" and "developed" and "reviewed". Maybe these things require a little more coordination, planning and capacity than you're suggesting?
    - tolmasky 4y ago
      > It's a stroke of a pen. There's no process or negotiation involved; he just methodically slow-walked it for electoral considerations. Right, my point is that while you bemoan what this says about Biden, I am encouraged about what this says about the electorate. Who would have thought that this would be a politically savvy move 10 years ago? I will gladly take every other October becoming “get rid of laws we should have gotten rid of 50 years ago” month. I cannot wait until someone says that future President X doesn’t really believe in copyright and patent reform, and that they’re only strengthening fair use protections and eliminating software patents because it’ll help them in the future election.
nu11ptr 4y ago
I wouldn't say upset. I like this move and it should have been done long ago. However, knowing that he waited until now to play this card shows that he doesn't care in the slightest for those rotting in prison, he simply wanted to buy votes. All politicians might do it, but it still seems to me a perfectly valid reason to hate nearly all politicians.
- user3939382 4y ago
  That’s my frustration with all the political moves in this timing category. Translation: I know what the people need and want but I’m not going to do it because I serve corporations, except once every two years when I need to appear to care.
  - tchaffee 4y ago
    Some of Biden's first executive actions were environmental and the US oil industry has been highly critical of him. That doesn't fit your narrative of only serving corporations except near elections.
    - user3939382 4y ago
      I could argue canceling Keystone XL was a gift to the saudis disguised as care about the environment. It’s not like delaying these permits does anything to curb oil demand or net production. I’m extremely cynical when it comes to almost any of these people in DC, there’s always an agenda, always an ulterior motive, and the People are rarely served and last priority. You have Ron Paul and Bernie Sanders types who appear to actually care and believe what they say but they’re ineffective even for those who agree with their positions.
      - tchaffee 4y ago
        > It’s not like delaying these permits does anything to curb oil demand or net production. Sure, one action in isolation does nothing. But you cherry picked one thing he did and took it out of the context of all the other things he did. Both early things and more recent executive actions. Tell the entire story and that early action looks entirely different. > People are rarely served and last priority. The US has one of the highest living standards in the world. I'm not saying there's no room for improvement. But lots of good laws are passed without an agenda other than the goals of the law itself. There's no need for extreme cynicism. What we need is less cynicism and more people exercising their right to vote. > they’re ineffective even for those who agree with their positions. No one who impacts the national discourse in such a visible and lasting way can be said to be ineffective. Sanders, along with the help of others, has shifted the Democratic party from right central to almost central. That's highly effective.
stjohnswarts 4y ago
A lot of people don’t live in the real world and see themselves as greedy actors like they should. Most people are when you get down to brass tacks. I’m 35 and can count on one hand the number of truly saintly people that I’ve met who would give everything almost to save a stranger. Politicians are people and they are calculating, I’m good he did it whether or not it was altruistic or political survival and I hope he does more of it. I know that Trump and most republicans never would have done this.
- jjtheblunt 4y ago
  > I know that Trump and most republicans never would have done this. Why not?
  - johnny22 4y ago
    because trump was in office and didn't do it? I get why say george w bush didn't do it, but trump was in office when public opinion had already changed enough.
  - cto_of_antifa 4y ago
    [dead]
smsm42 4y ago
I'm usually not the one to praise Biden, but here he's doing the right thing, and well within his rights. Yes, the timing is obviously related to the elections, but that's how the politics is played - you do things that the voters want, you get the votes. If the other guys wanted to do it first, they had plenty of opportunity. They didn't - well, if you lose the ball and the other team scores, then that's the game, you can be sad if you team is losing but nothing against the rules has happened.
- WesternWind 4y ago
  This is a good point, that if the Republicans wanted to do this they have had ample opportunity.
blueprint 4y ago
> There's no corruption in doing popular things that can help get people in your party elected. What a ridiculous statement. Go study some philosophy.
bravetraveler 4y ago
I think I'm one of these, I'm having a hard time coming to terms with my thoughts I guess most simply, it's like double dipping or expecting congratulations for keeping a commitment Overall I'm happy for it, but I don't like the idea that this is something to be rewarded over expected An elected official followed popular demand? Holy cow!

rayiner 4y ago

This. I think marijuana should be illegal (but at the state level) but this seems to me like a smart move politically. Doing popular things to get votes is a good thing. That’s kind of the whole theory of democracy.

WirelessGigabit 4y ago
Why should it be illegal? I can just order stuff online here, and get some gummies delivered. Doesn’t bother anybody.
- dbrueck 4y ago
  > Why should it be illegal? For the same reasons any other substance is regulated, because it can affect other people, see e.g. https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/newsroom/feature/marijuana-and-driving.html https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/newsroom/feature/marijuana-and-dri....
  - pstuart 4y ago
    That's the public excuse. The reality is that it's a powerful tool to oppress "others" -- https://www.aclu.org/post-to-social/war-drugs-racist https://www.aclu.org/post-to-social/war-drugs-racist This is well documented, the above link is one of many.
    - dbrueck 4y ago
      It doesn't have to be an either-or. To be clear, I'm not personally advocating that marijuana be illegal, just answering the earlier comment that was arguing that use of marijuana affects nobody but the user, which can sometimes be true but is definitely not always true, and that is one of the main the bases for substance regulation. The fact that how substances are regulated is irregular and inconsistent is a separate issue from whether or not it's ok for a society to regulate some substances.
      - JAlexoid 4y ago
        Having neurosyphilis will affect "others". The bar for "affects others" is extremely low in society. Unless there's a very clear study, that a certain substance will cause an average human being to be aggressive, belligerent and violent - there's hardly a case for "affects others".
      - galangalalgol 4y ago
        What do you mean by irregular or inconsistent? That some substances extremely harmful to society are loosely regulated while mostly innocuous ones put people in prison? That is troublesome. But if you mean variation by state, I think that is normal and should be moreso. I like my content labels, but I don't understand why the protection of interstate commerce means the FDA gets to tell my doctor which drugs they can prescribe for which conditions. Federal prohibition of alcohol required an amendment. The federal prohibition on any substance for any reason should require the same. There are plenty of items that are contraband in one state but not the next, that is no reason to ignore explicit limits on federal power.
      - pstuart 4y ago
- steve76 4y ago
- rayiner 4y ago
  I don’t believe in the concept of “victimless crimes.” Society should enforce moral standards and help people make good decisions. Why do you need marijuana? It doesn’t seem necessary to me. Maybe for legitimate medical uses. Edit: To respond to the dead comment below, I think banning alcohol would probably be a good thing. Alcohol exacts a terrible toll on women and children. It’s no surprise, then, that the first thing American women did with the right to vote was ban alcohol. Alcohol is banned in my home country, and many others. That said, I’m afraid it’s too deeply embedded in western culture to make banning alcohol a realistic possibility. But just because that’s true, how does that justify legalizing and normalizing the new vice of drug use?
  - retIghke 4y ago
    This means you also support the prohibition of alcohol, does it not?
  - fknorangesite 4y ago
    > I think banning alcohol would probably be a good thing. Yes, after all this worked so well the first time.
    - rayiner 4y ago
      As I said, it might be impractical in a society where alcohol use and abuse is deeply ingrained in the culture. It works just fine in for example Muslim countries where there are social taboos to back up the law. My point is that, even if alcohol prohibition is impractical in a western country, that’s not a reason to normalize and legalize a new and different vice.
  - OkayPhysicist 4y ago
    What moral standards? And more interestingly whose moral standards? What moral rule is violated by allowing vice, or what utility function is reduced? If you don't establish such axiomatic foundations in conversations about morality, you're doomed to just talk past each other. For example, I treat free will and empathy as axiomatic goods. I don't like being told what to do, and I don't like harm coming to others. By extension, others having their free will suppressed is bad, but not axiomatically bad in so much as it can cause greater suppression of the freedom of others. Under such a framework, it should be pretty obvious why I would oppose prohibition. If someone does something that in of itself does not harm others, then that thing is at worst ethically neutral, and thus there is no good to offset the ethical evil of interceding in them doing it. On the other hand, if someone is attempting to kill someone else, or enslave someone else, or otherwise suppress the other's ability to be free, then preventing that by any means necessary is a moral good. So what are YOUR axioms that you are operating off of? What base assumptions underlie your "moral standards"?
poopnugget 4y ago

thrown_22 4y ago

> So some people are upset that this happening in an election season, even though they support it? Why wasn't it done 10 years ago?

ukyrgf 4y ago
My boss does this every day. Instead of thanks for getting it done, it's why wasn't this done last year? Just an exhausting way to live life.
- thrown_22 4y ago
  - PuppyTailWags 4y ago
    No, the reason why Roe vs Wade is gone is because of a focused, well-funded mobilization campaign in legal interpretation, legal scholarship, and funding of judge careers in order to turn the judicial system into a tool for subverting popular progressive sentiment.
    - DontchaKnowit 4y ago
      Interesting, because the way I see it, almost the exact same thing can be said of the original roe v wade decision- the result of a focused campaign for promoting progressive sentiment.
      - PuppyTailWags 4y ago
        No, there doesn't exist anything comparable to the infrastructure of the conservative judicial system. Wealthy progressive individuals hiding behind multiple corporations were not writing affidavits to roe v wade pretending to be multiple people. That strategy didn't exist until much later. Similarly, the decades-long funding of legal scholarship to prevent progressive legislation has no progressive comparison of equal maturity. There is no comparison to the size and influence of the Federalist Society in the funding of the careers of politically-motivated law students into politically-biased judges.

perihelions 4y ago

- "So some people are upset that this happening in an election season, even though they support it?" If it were a sincere and principled choice, he would have done it in his first week in office. Like Carter with his Vietnam pardons in January 1977. It's difficult not to become cynical about electoral politics today, when politicians have become so transparently cynical about your vote.

tolmasky 4y ago
Biden signed 30 executive orders his first week in office. In everything from climate change to the pandemic. Not sure anyone remembers but that was a big deal back in 2021. We’ve wanted this for 50 years, Biden getting it done in under 2 years isn’t too shabby. Was it for political reasons? I hope so! It would be nice for the politically expedient thing to start lining up with what’s actually right and what people want for a change. As Milton Friedman used to say, “I do not believe that the solution to our problem is simply to elect the right people. The important thing is to establish a political climate of opinion which will make it politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing.”
- perihelions 4y ago
  - latch 4y ago
    Honest question: isn't it a stroke of the pen that then must be executed? The proclamation is a very short read and what I got from it is that now things need to be "administered" and "developed" and "reviewed". Maybe these things require a little more coordination, planning and capacity than you're suggesting?
  - tolmasky 4y ago
    > It's a stroke of a pen. There's no process or negotiation involved; he just methodically slow-walked it for electoral considerations. Right, my point is that while you bemoan what this says about Biden, I am encouraged about what this says about the electorate. Who would have thought that this would be a politically savvy move 10 years ago? I will gladly take every other October becoming “get rid of laws we should have gotten rid of 50 years ago” month. I cannot wait until someone says that future President X doesn’t really believe in copyright and patent reform, and that they’re only strengthening fair use protections and eliminating software patents because it’ll help them in the future election.

nu11ptr 4y ago

I wouldn't say upset. I like this move and it should have been done long ago. However, knowing that he waited until now to play this card shows that he doesn't care in the slightest for those rotting in prison, he simply wanted to buy votes. All politicians might do it, but it still seems to me a perfectly valid reason to hate nearly all politicians.

user3939382 4y ago
That’s my frustration with all the political moves in this timing category. Translation: I know what the people need and want but I’m not going to do it because I serve corporations, except once every two years when I need to appear to care.
- tchaffee 4y ago
  Some of Biden's first executive actions were environmental and the US oil industry has been highly critical of him. That doesn't fit your narrative of only serving corporations except near elections.
  - user3939382 4y ago
    I could argue canceling Keystone XL was a gift to the saudis disguised as care about the environment. It’s not like delaying these permits does anything to curb oil demand or net production. I’m extremely cynical when it comes to almost any of these people in DC, there’s always an agenda, always an ulterior motive, and the People are rarely served and last priority. You have Ron Paul and Bernie Sanders types who appear to actually care and believe what they say but they’re ineffective even for those who agree with their positions.
    - tchaffee 4y ago
      > It’s not like delaying these permits does anything to curb oil demand or net production. Sure, one action in isolation does nothing. But you cherry picked one thing he did and took it out of the context of all the other things he did. Both early things and more recent executive actions. Tell the entire story and that early action looks entirely different. > People are rarely served and last priority. The US has one of the highest living standards in the world. I'm not saying there's no room for improvement. But lots of good laws are passed without an agenda other than the goals of the law itself. There's no need for extreme cynicism. What we need is less cynicism and more people exercising their right to vote. > they’re ineffective even for those who agree with their positions. No one who impacts the national discourse in such a visible and lasting way can be said to be ineffective. Sanders, along with the help of others, has shifted the Democratic party from right central to almost central. That's highly effective.

stjohnswarts 4y ago

A lot of people don’t live in the real world and see themselves as greedy actors like they should. Most people are when you get down to brass tacks. I’m 35 and can count on one hand the number of truly saintly people that I’ve met who would give everything almost to save a stranger. Politicians are people and they are calculating, I’m good he did it whether or not it was altruistic or political survival and I hope he does more of it. I know that Trump and most republicans never would have done this.

jjtheblunt 4y ago
> I know that Trump and most republicans never would have done this. Why not?
- johnny22 4y ago
  because trump was in office and didn't do it? I get why say george w bush didn't do it, but trump was in office when public opinion had already changed enough.
- cto_of_antifa 4y ago
  [dead]

smsm42 4y ago

I'm usually not the one to praise Biden, but here he's doing the right thing, and well within his rights. Yes, the timing is obviously related to the elections, but that's how the politics is played - you do things that the voters want, you get the votes. If the other guys wanted to do it first, they had plenty of opportunity. They didn't - well, if you lose the ball and the other team scores, then that's the game, you can be sad if you team is losing but nothing against the rules has happened.

WesternWind 4y ago
This is a good point, that if the Republicans wanted to do this they have had ample opportunity.

blueprint 4y ago

> There's no corruption in doing popular things that can help get people in your party elected. What a ridiculous statement. Go study some philosophy.

bravetraveler 4y ago

I think I'm one of these, I'm having a hard time coming to terms with my thoughts I guess most simply, it's like double dipping or expecting congratulations for keeping a commitment Overall I'm happy for it, but I don't like the idea that this is something to be rewarded over expected An elected official followed popular demand? Holy cow!