https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-medical-pot-20141216-st...
Although the courts eventually had to shut down the Obama DOJ for continuing to prosecute in those states anyway.
https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-medical-pot-201...
The votes are there when you aren't openly calling what you are doing "full legalization".
No, they prohibit prosecuting use consistent with state medical use laws; in both 2019 and 2020 the House voted to extend that to state-legal use generally, but the Senate didn’t go along. (The House, but not the Senate, also passed a decriminalization bill in 2020.)
They are perfectly willing to make pot legal, however, they prefer to avoid looking like they are doing so as long as possible.
Biden's open opposition is the bigger issue here. Lets not forget who was behind a lot of the drug war legislation.
>Biden was a major Democratic leader in spearheading America’s war on drugs during the 1980s and ’90s.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/4/25/18282870/j...
If its not “sufficient numbers of Republican members of the Senate to force McConnell to actually allow it on the floor”—and it wasn’t—it was an empty threat; the House actually passed an expanded prosecution ban twice and a general decriminalization, none of those made it into any bill on the Senate floor.
> Biden's open opposition is the bigger issue here.
Not really, Biden publicly supports legalization of medical marijuana, decriminalization, rescheduling, permitting state choice on legalization, and automatic record expungement. This differs from federal legalization substantively only in that there would be federal backup for states that choose not to legalize, and has not openly opposed (or supported) the stronger legalization proposals now being announced by, among others, much of the Democratic Senate leadership.
The only meaningful barrier to something very close to full legalization is support in the Senate, mainly the potential of a filibuster, but there’s a couple uncertain D votes (like Manchin) that could prevent even a bare majority.
The President and the majority of the Democratic caucus have different positions, but not far enough apart to be a real barrier to lawmaking.
> Biden was a major Democratic leader in spearheading America’s war on drugs during the 1980s and ’90s.
Yeah, but its not the 80s and 90s; its the 2020s, and Biden has a very different position today.
>This month, something unusual happened: Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer took a stand against President Joe Biden.
The New York Democrat, typically a strong Biden ally, has transformed into one of the Senate’s biggest advocates for marijuana legalization, which Biden continues to oppose. But Schumer said he’ll move forward with his legalization bill anyway.
...based on his public remarks, [Biden] seems genuinely conservative on the issue — arguing only for decriminalization (in which the threat of jail or prison time is removed for possession, but sales remain illegal), and calling for “more scientific investigations” into the issue, particularly whether pot is a “gateway drug.”
Biden, after all, not just supported but spearheaded many of the country’s current drug war policies. During the 1980s and ’90s, he backed and helped write bill after bill that toughened federal criminal penalties against all sorts of drugs. Biden has since admitted to going too far in at least some respects, but this is where he built his early political career.
https://www.vox.com/22387746/biden-marijuana-weed-legalizati...
I'm not saying there will be a tie. I'm saying the votes to pass it are there.
Senators have just been afraid to openly support it.
