Andrew Bates, a spokesman for the presidential campaign of former Vice President Joe Biden, issued a statement on Thursday in which he said that Biden supports decriminalizing marijuana use and possession, but believes that the question of whether to legalize the drug rests with the states.
“As he said, Vice President Biden does not believe anyone should be in jail simply for smoking or possessing marijuana. He supports decriminalizing marijuana and automatically expunging prior criminal records for marijuana possession, so those affected don’t have to figure out how to petition for it or pay for a lawyer.’’
Bates also said that Biden would leave legalization of marijuana up to the states, but if elected, he is going to reclassify marijuana as a Schedule II drug.
“He would allow states to continue to make their own choices regarding legalization and would seek to make it easier to conduct research on marijuana’s positive and negative health impacts by rescheduling it as a schedule 2 drug.’’
According to The Hill, marijuana is considered a Schedule 1 substance which the DEA puts in the category of drugs “with no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.’’ Marijuana along with LSD, heroin, and peyote is in Schedule 1. On the other hand, cocaine, fentanyl, and methamphetamine are considered Schedule 2 drugs, which means they have some kind of medical use.
Biden’s history in the Senate says that he as a senator opposed the legalization of marijuana as he supported measures for shutting down substance use in the United States.
Now, he is not the only one who supports the legalization of marijuana, as other Democrats such as Senators Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren, Kirsten Gillibrand, and Bernie Sanders also support the idea of decriminalizing marijuana.
Until now, 10 states legalized the use of marijuana in a recreational way, and 33 states approved it for medical use.
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