80+ Groups Mark 4/20 With Call for Biden to End Federal Marijuana Prohibition

As cannabis enthusiasts across the United States and around the world celebrated 4/20 Thursday, more than 80 advocacy groups urged the administration of President Joe Biden to remove marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act and to back comprehensive legal reform.

In a letter to the president and key administration officials, the groups—led by the Drug Policy Alliance—acknowledged Biden's October 2022 pardon of all U.S. citizens and legal residents convicted of simple federal marijuana possession—less than 100 people in total—and other moves like encouraging state governors to forgive cannabis offenses and launching an administrative review of the plant's listing in the most severe category on the Controlled Substances Act (CSA).

"Nonetheless, these actions alone will neither fully end future harms of marijuana criminalization nor repair past harms," the letter states. "Accordingly, we urge you and your administration to take the steps necessary to deschedule marijuana in conjunction with other administrative actions that center Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) communities."

"Additionally," the groups wrote, "we implore your administration to support comprehensive marijuana reform legislation in Congress, such as the Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act (CAOA), a bill that deschedules marijuana, repairs the past harms of prohibition, and provides a regulatory framework for marijuana markets."

"Marijuana must be fully removed from the CSA and descheduled," the letter argues. "Rescheduling marijuana to a less restrictive schedule in the CSA would do little to address the harms of federal criminalization. As long as marijuana remains anywhere in the CSA, the majority of the problems associated with its criminalization will persist."

Acknowledging that Biden cannot unilaterally end federal cannabis prohibition, the letter's signers urged the president to "take whatever steps are necessary to make sure marijuana is descheduled and encourage Congress to pass comprehensive legislation that includes criminal justice reform, repairing and centering communities most harmed by prohibition and criminalization, and a regulatory framework that is rooted in equity, justice, and public health."

Over a year after the then-Democratic-controlled House of Representatives passed the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement (MORE) Act—which would decriminalize marijuana nationwide and expunge federal cannabis convictions—numerous members of Congress also called for an end to cannabis criminalization.

U.S. Sen. John Fetterman posted this photo with the caption "It's 4:20 on 4/20. That's the tweet" on his Twitter page on April 20, 2023.

"We need to legalize marijuana AND make the industry more accessible to those who have been unjustly criminalized at its hands so that Black and Brown communities aren't being incarcerated while others are making millions," Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) tweeted.

Noting that Black people are around five times more likely than whites people to be arrested in Pennsylvania for marijuana possession, Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.) asserted that "it's time to legalize cannabis, expunge all marijuana convictions, and release everyone incarcerated on nonviolent marijuana-related charges."

On Tuesday, Reps. Dave Joyce (R-Ohio) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) reintroduced bipartisan legislation—the Harnessing Opportunities by Pursuing Expungement (HOPE) Act—that, if passed, would incentivize states to offer people with nonviolent marijuana convictions federal grants.