More than half of U.S. states have legalized cannabis use for some purposes. Lawmakers have proposed decriminalizing marijuana, which would entail reduced penalties for users, and have pushed for giving the industry access to banking services. Those promoting changes include a diverse range of political figures, from former Republican House Speaker John Boehner to progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.).
“If someone like myself and a progressive like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez can find some common ground, it begs the question, why hasn’t the president acted?” said Rep. Dave Joyce (R., Ohio), who has worked on legislation to decriminalize the drug and encourage states to expunge records. “The solutions are there. It’s just a matter of political will,” he said.
Major legislation to decriminalize cannabis appears stuck amid opposition from some Republicans and some moderate Democrats. President Biden hasn’t acted on his own campaign-trail promises to decriminalize marijuana and expunge criminal records of users. The White House said cannabis policy is under study, but declined to comment further.
More than two in three Americans support legalizing marijuana, according to a 2021 Gallup poll. That is up from a decade ago, when half of Americans were in favor, Gallup found.
More broadly, the same Gallup poll found that 81% of Republicans described the problem of drugs in the U.S. as extremeley or very serious, compared with 54% of Democrats. Some advocates for legal changes to marijuana laws acknowledge that this makes for a challenging political climate as the midterm elections approach and Republicans cast Democrats as soft on crime. Support for relaxing marijuana laws is much higher among Democrats than Republicans, only half of whom support legalization, Gallup found.
“I can definitely see the Biden administration looking at rising crime rates and think it would be a messaging mistake to begin to talk about decriminalization of cannabis, about pardons and record expungement,” said John Hudak, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who studies marijuana policy.
Some moderate Democrats said they want to see more research before legalizing marijuana at a time when rates of abuse of other substances have risen. A spokeswoman for Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D., N.H.) said she believes more research is needed over “the potential public health consequences of legalization, particularly in states like New Hampshire where rates of substance misuse have surged during the pandemic.”
Mr. Biden as a senator helped write crime laws in the 1980s and 1990s that led to high incarceration numbers for drug offenses. As a candidate for president in 2020 he distanced himself from that history and called for ending incarceration for drug use alone and funding for education and crime-prevention programs.
Still, he didn’t embrace full legalization of marijuana as did most of his Democratic primary rivals, including Kamala Harris and Bernie Sanders.
Instead, Mr. Biden called for decriminalizing it, which would prevent people from being incarcerated for possession. He also said he would change the way cannabis is treated under the Controlled Substances Act, which the administration can do without congressional action, according to the Congressional Research Service.
Cannabis is a Schedule I drug, on the same level as heroin, and deemed to have a high potential for abuse and no accepted medical use. Reclassifying it as a Schedule II drug, like cocaine or fentanyl, would make it easier for researchers to study it, Mr. Biden’s campaign said.
Drug Enforcement Administration Administrator Anne Milgram, whose agency oversees federal drug classifications, said earlier this month the agency is focused on drugs such as fentanyl and methamphetamine that are driving record opioid overdose deaths nationwide.
“We have to use our very limited resources to be focused on what I believe is killing Americans at unprecedented rates,” she said. The DEA, however, is focused on expanding research into marijuana’s medicinal properties, she said.
Mr. Biden’s administration in his first year primarily focused on other priorities: Responding to Covid-19; funding infrastructure improvements; and attempting to launch a package of healthcare, climate and social programs known as Build Back Better. Mr. Biden hasn’t acted on some other promises that were controversial within his party, such as reducing student debt for millions of Americans.
“It’s incredibly popular policy, so this is head scratching in many ways,” said Maritza Perez, director of national affairs at the advocacy group Drug Policy Alliance.
Advocates for changing marijuana laws say criminalizing the drug disproportionately hurts Black Americans. A 2020 study by the American Civil Liberties Union found that on average a Black person is 3.6 times more likely to be arrested for cannabis possession than a white person, though usage rates are similar.
“The federal government has both an obligation and opportunity to correct this systemic injustice,” said Rep. Cori Bush (D., Mo.).
The White House has said Mr. Biden intends to use his power of clemency to help people with drug convictions.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) has said he would unveil this spring legislation to legalize marijuana, set a federal tax and give sellers access to the banking system. New York state legalized recreational cannabis in 2021 after years of permitting medical use and is set to draw billions in tax revenue. Mr. Schumer’s advocacy is also seen by political analysts as a way to shore up support as he runs for reelection and looks to avoid a Democratic primary challenge from the left.
The House has previously passed legislation to decriminalize it and this month approved provisions to give cannabis companies access to the banking system, as marijuana lobbying has soared in what has become a multibillion-dollar industry.
But with many Republicans and some Democrats opposed, odds of Senate passage are slim given filibuster rules requiring 60 votes.
“I don’t think it’s the right thing to do,” Sen. Mike Rounds (R., S.D.) told South Dakota Public Broadcasting last year when Mr. Schumer first floated his legislation. “I think it sends the wrong message to our youth. We have enough problems with gateway drugs the way that it is right now.”
Kevin Sabet, a drug policy adviser under former President Barack Obama who is now president of Smart Approaches to Marijuana, said he supports decriminalizing marijuana use as Mr. Biden has proposed, rather than full legalization, saying a growing industry is cultivating more potent versions of the drug that raise health and safety issues, including driving.
“I think we should not go after low-level users and there is medical promise with components of marijuana,” Mr. Sabet added, “but to wholesale legalize would be to sign up this country for another public-health disaster,” he said.
Kevin Ring, president of Families Against Mandatory Minimums, an advocacy group focused on sentencing laws, said that the president’s history on crime issues gives him credibility with voters and that taking action on marijuana wouldn’t cost him support. Mr. Biden also broke with some in his party in 2020 by disagreeing with calls to reduce funding to police departments.
“If murders and shootings are up and we have record drug overdose deaths and Republicans teeing up crime as an issue to run on in the midterms, it gets harder,” Mr. Ring said. “But it shouldn’t be.”