this post was submitted on 16 Mar 2024
855 points (98.0% liked)

politics

19090 readers
5769 users here now

Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!

Rules:

  1. Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.

Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.

Example:

  1. Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
  2. Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
  3. No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
  4. Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
  5. No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

That's all the rules!

Civic Links

Register To Vote

Citizenship Resource Center

Congressional Awards Program

Federal Government Agencies

Library of Congress Legislative Resources

The White House

U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. Senate

Partnered Communities:

News

World News

Business News

Political Discussion

Ask Politics

Military News

Global Politics

Moderate Politics

Progressive Politics

UK Politics

Canadian Politics

Australian Politics

New Zealand Politics

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Vice President Kamala Harris on Friday called on the federal government to move “as quickly as possible” to change the way it officially classifies marijuana, saying that “nobody should have to go to jail for smoking weed.”

“I cannot emphasize enough that they need to get to it as quickly as possible,” Harris said. “We need to have a resolution based on their findings and their assessment. This issue is stark when one considers the fact that on the schedule currently, marijuana is considered as dangerous as heroin ― as dangerous as heroin ― and more dangerous than fentanyl, which is absurd, not to mention patently unfair.”

Marijuana is currently listed as a Schedule 1 drug by the Drug Enforcement Administration. That classification designates it one of the most dangerous drugs possible, with no medicinal uses. Other substances in the same category include heroin, ecstasy and LSD. Marijuana advocates have been pushing for years for the federal government to either reschedule marijuana to a different category or deschedule it entirely.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 32 points 7 months ago (6 children)

Lemmy sees something good happen:

"Not good enough!"

We all know it should have happened before, but dismissing that the vice president just publicly called for this is silly

[–] [email protected] 29 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

Biden campaigned on rescheduling it so this is just nakedly trying to boost their pre-election popularity. They could've done this day one. They didn't. They won't.

Web archive of Biden's campaign site, September 2019: http://web.archive.org/web/20190723224533/https://joebiden.com/justice/

Decriminalize the use of cannabis and automatically expunge all prior cannabis use convictions. Biden believes no one should be in jail because of cannabis use. As president, he will decriminalize cannabis use and automatically expunge prior convictions. And, he will support the legalization of cannabis for medical purposes, leave decisions regarding legalization for recreational use up to the states, and reschedule cannabis as a schedule II drug so researchers can study its positive and negative impacts.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago

Obama campaigned on this so it's been 12 years they've fucked around on it. People need to stop defending the Democratic party for being corrupt pieces of shit.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 7 months ago (1 children)

They've been "calling for it" since Biden campaign. And reschedule? It should be descheduled.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago (1 children)

And the DEA is actively working on it, which just so happens to be the final step in rescheduling a drug.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I work in the space industry and this just reeks of the "hurry up and wait" that I live in. If the right pressure was there, it'd be rescheduled already. I'm 50/50 on if they are actually working on it or if feet are being dragged due to institutional friction.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 7 months ago

They're doing as little as possible to say they're working on it.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I hate it here for that reason. With this being the last option, I've reverted to Google News, NYTimes and SF Chronicle apps. Lemmy's inability to feel joy has helped me ditch social media most of the time.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Reddit very seriously had the same problem.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago (1 children)

The under current of negativity seems a bit stronger here though imo.

I guess when you have a huge portion of posters that self-selected to leave a platform in protest you get population predisposed to protesting and complaining about things.

It gets a bit tiring to hear people see incremental change but shit on it because it's not perfect or "it should have happened sooner". I wonder if these people would ever be happy with anything?

The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is today. If they get this rescheduled that would be a huge win.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

They won't. They've been fucking around on this for at least 12 years.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I hope they do just to shut up a bunch of people up but that part definitely won't happen.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

You'd know about those I suppose.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago

It isn't good enough... we have fucking nothing and there's been chat about this for close to 2 decades.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago

Oh sure, every 4 years Lucy comes out with the football and taunts you to take a run at it and I’m the one not being realistic. It’s total horseshit to disappear on an issue every 4 years except when you think it might help you in an election to wave it around.

It’s not “Lemmy sees something good happen”; nothing good has happened. The same platitudes have been trotted out for the 78th time. But maybe this time…!

[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 months ago (1 children)

The words of a politician are not accomplishments.

If it ever gets descheduled, it'll be an accomplishment. I'm not going to treat announcements as accomplishments.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Public discourse from a sitting executive politician represents progress. It is not enough yet, but it is progress. In years past such statements would have been massively disruptive, and via speech like this the topic is being normalized.

It's not enough yet. We arenf done

[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Stop expecting me to believe that politicians' lies are progress just because you believe them.

It's not an accomplishment until it's accomplished.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Just because you don't understand the power of normalized discourse doesn't mean I have some obligation to you.

I'm just telling you how reality works.

Edit im proud to hear more discussion of climate, LGBT, drug decrim and other issues, at increasingly public and increasingly executive levels.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I know the difference between hot air and accomplishments. You're not going to gaslight me into accepting the former as the latter. All you're doing is convincing me that you prefer words to accomplishments.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

50 years ago a woman, non-white politician wouldn't have been a common thing. Part of how we got to where we are today is via public, popularized discourse.

The same occurs in this article and the speech that lead to it.

It doesn't mean the world is changing in an active sense, but it does mean the conversation is happening. This is part of the power of executive office.

I'm sorry you had to learn about this from me.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

We lost roe because we only talked about codifying it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

We GOT roe because we discussed it.

Edit auto

[–] [email protected] -1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

We got roe because we had a court willing to do it.

We don't anymore. Accepting talk instead of accomplishments has lost us ground. And since all Democrats do is talk, that loss is permanent.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

You're missing the point.

The point, for your roe v Wade example is that at one point speaking of abortion in public, let alone politically was unthinkable. Due to some brave people, and eventually people in political office, SPEAKING ABOUT the issue made it viable.

Of course there are many other factors, and many other brave and impactful people.

But speech is political action, no question.

But it's not enough, on it's own.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

And if we accept talk as accomplished fact, we don't move beyond talk.

Meanwhile, Republicans act while we content ourselves with talk. And we lose Roe.

And we'll keep only talking about ending the racist drug war and never actually ending it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

You're behaving like a silly goose, and assuming I am ONLY looking for talk. Not everything after.

We done

[–] [email protected] -5 points 7 months ago

Expecting me to treat talk as an accomplishment is exactly that.