Tori Miller | News EditorPresident Joe Biden pardoned thousands of people convicted of simple marijuana possession under federal law Thursday. “The federal government currently classifies marijuana as a Schedule 1 substance, the same as heroin and LSD and more serious than fentanyl,” Biden said. Today, we begin to right these wrongs.”Extreme racial disparities in marijuana possession arrests persist throughout the country which have not improved since 2010, according to an ACLU research report, and Black people are 3.64 times more likely than white people to be arrested for marijuana possession. Biden stopped short of calling for the complete decriminalization of marijuana, which would take an act of Congress to accomplish. But he said on Twitter that the federal government still needs “important limitations on trafficking, marketing and underage sales of marijuana,” according to the New York Times.

Source: CNN October 16, 2022 01:46 UTC