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Much of being tough on crime involves locking up potheads — over half of all drug arrests are over weed. As reefer madness paranoia wanes with the rapid jump in cannabis dispensaries that look an awful lot like Apple stores, people have been having a change of heart. There has been lots support for Biden’s decision to pardon weed offenses in D.C. The pardon wave may be more of a local affair than a nationwide change of heart, though.
When President Joe Biden announced plans last week to pardon thousands of people with low-level federal marijuana convictions, he implored the nation’s governors to follow his lead…Republican governors have little reason to heed his call and be seen as advancing the agenda of an unpopular Democratic president when GOP messaging has focused on runaway inflation and soaring crime rates in the final stretch before Election Day.
Republicans also argue that Biden’s moves to provide relief to past weed offenders and potentially loosen federal restrictions on the drug are a cynical effort to juice turnout among young voters just weeks before Election Day. Younger voters favor weed legalization in higher numbers than their older counterparts and are more likely to vote Democratic, but they also turn out in much lower numbers for midterm elections.
If you’re in a red state looking to smoke weed legally sometime soon, I wouldn’t hold your breath. Even if Biden and friends manage to legalize weed federally, you’d still have to put up with your state’s decisions about the legality of the sticky icky. Moral of the story? Might not be the best idea to delete your plug’s number just yet.
Don’t Expect Governors To Heed Biden’s Weed Plea [Politico]
Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s. He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who cannot swim, a published author on critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at cwilliams@abovethelaw.com and by tweet at @WritesForRent.
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