Why is President Biden blocking Washington DC from legal cannabis sales?
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President Joe Biden has made another attempt to bar Washington, DC from legalizing marijuana sales as part of the fiscal 2023 budget proposal he submitted to Congress Monday.
Although DC voters overwhelmingly approved cannabis legalization in 2014, each time the budget comes up, a bill has prevented the county government from enacting regulated cannabis sales. Failure to remove the DC driver prevents the nation’s capital from using local taxpayer dollars to implement its legal cannabis program.
Photo by Louis Velazquez via Unsplash
“The country’s capital could be a model for getting cannabis legalization right. Instead, it’s quite the opposite, and President Biden now bears some of the blame,” said Steven Hawkins, CEO of the US Cannabis Council, adding that the government is fueling a dangerous gray market in the District of Columbia that is lacking targeted standards or Safeguards operate underage consumers.
Last week, the Drug Policy Alliance, along with more than 50 criminal justice reform, business, labor and drug policy organizations, sent a letter to House and Senate appropriators and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Speaker Nancy Pelosi, calling for the removal of the Retaining Funds Driver preventing DC from spending its own money to legalize and regulate the sale of adult marijuana.
What do you think?
In an election year of chart inflation and a war in Eastern Europe that could plunge the US economy into yet another crisis, one wonders why the government would not seek to rally votes for its party’s candidates on a relatively uncontroversial issue : Cannabis legalization. After all, almost 70% of the country, Democrats and Republicans apparently alike, have expressed their support for it.
And why would the President constantly paralyze the nation’s capital, where an equally large majority voted to legalize and properly control cannabis?
“Nobody expects cannabis reform to be the top priority for a president faced with Russia, inflation and COVID-19. However, President Biden has consistently missed opportunities to honor his campaign commitments to pardon nonviolent offenders, fund eradication programs, encourage research, and allow states autonomy over their medical and adult-use programs,” said Hawkins of the USCC. “In some cases, the government has actually done the reverse with cannabis.”
Again, and with all due respect, what do you think?
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