As frustration mounts over unfulfilled guarantees to reform federal marijuana legal guidelines, a current, controversial report has emerged about President Joe Biden’s daughter-in-law allegedly receiving U.S. Secret Service safety as she shopped at a hashish dispensary in California.
The Each day Mail reported late final month that Melissa Cohen, who’s married to Biden’s son Hunter, was noticed leaving a Malibu dispensary known as 99 Excessive Tide, with a “small unidentified buy.”
Whereas marijuana is authorized for grownup use in California, it stays federally unlawful. The controversy isn’t a lot not about Cohen reportedly patronizing the store; relatively, it’s concerning the obvious use of a federally funded Secret Service element to guard the transaction at a time when Biden has failed to satisfy his marketing campaign pledges to decriminalize hashish and free people who find themselves serving time behind bars for previous convictions.
Biden has mentioned that he doesn’t imagine individuals ought to be incarcerated over hashish, and he’s expressed assist for letting states set their very own insurance policies with out federal intervention, however he hasn’t taken significant steps to finish federal criminalization as he promised on the marketing campaign path.
The president did grant clemency to 78 individuals, together with these with non-violent federal drug convictions on their data, in April. However advocates have made clear that they need to see bolder government motion, like a mass pardon for all individuals who stay behind bars over marijuana.
To that finish, the optics of a presidential relative reportedly getting Secret Service safety whereas showing to have interaction in an exercise that continues to be federally prohibited and for which the president is permitting individuals to stay in prisons regardless of marketing campaign guarantees on the contrary raises questions.
Nevertheless, it’s necessary to notice that whereas the Each day Mail reported that the particular person in plainclothes who seems within the outlet’s images subsequent to Cohen is a Secret Service agent, Marijuana Second has not been in a position to independently affirm that. It’s additionally attainable that Cohen may have bought non-cannabis objects on the dispensary, or federally authorized hemp objects.
The White Home didn’t reply to a request to fact-check The Each day Mail’s reporting and supply remark.
BOWL PAC Founder Justin Strekal instructed Marijuana Second that if the reporting is correct, he hopes that “Melissa had a constructive expertise and can convey the normalcy of shopping for hashish to the president and encourage his vocal assist for legalization.”
(Disclosure: Strekal helps Marijuana Second’s work by way of a monthly pledge on Patreon.)
Whereas Biden has backed modest hashish reform proposals, the White Home has made clear that his general place in opposition of adult-use legalization has not modified, regardless of supermajority assist for the coverage change amongst voters in his get together.
As an alternative, the president’s solely public touch upon marijuana coverage since taking workplace occurred final month, when mentioned in response to a reporter’s query about hashish clemency that his administration is “engaged on” it.
Biden’s broader opposition to leisure legalization hasn’t stopped congressional lawmakers, together with Senate Majority Chief Chuck Schumer (D-NY), from working to finish federal prohibition legislatively, nonetheless.
The chief filed a much-anticipated legalization invoice that might additionally impose a federal tax on hashish gross sales and promote social fairness final month. Nevertheless, likelihood is slim that the excellent reform proposal has sufficient assist to achieve the 60-vote threshold wanted to superior by way of the chamber.
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Following the invoice submitting, Schumer mentioned that he’s dedicated to getting “one thing” carried out on hashish reform “this yr.” He’s seemingly opened the door to shifting a separate bundle of incremental marijuana proposals, together with hashish banking reform, that he’s been discussing with bicameral and bipartisan places of work.
The Home, in the meantime, has authorized a invoice to federally legalize hashish on two events.
White Home Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was requested lately about Biden’s clemency plans for individuals with federal marijuana convictions, and he or she mentioned merely that he’s persevering with to “consider additional makes use of of clemency powers.”
A report printed by the Congressional Analysis Service (CRS) final yr affirmed that the president has it inside his energy to grant mass pardons for hashish offenses. It additionally mentioned that the administration can transfer to federally legalize hashish with out ready for lawmakers to behave.
Rahul Gupta, director of the Workplace of Nationwide Drug Management Coverage (ONDCP), mentioned in June that the Biden administration is “monitoring” states which have legalized marijuana to tell federal coverage, recognizing the failures of the present prohibitionist method.