Recently Vice President Kamala Harris convened a roundtable about marijuana and criminal justice reform with Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear (D), rapper Fat Joe, and individuals previously convicted of the offense of simple possession of marijuana who have been pardoned by President Biden.
The message Harris delivered was simple: the Biden administration believes that “no one should be jailed for simply using” marijuana. But Harris took her comments a step further, stating to the group and assembled media that it’s “absurd” that marijuana is a Schedule I drug.
First, we should address what Harris left unsaid. Since his election, Biden has demonstrated that criminal justice reform is possible without commercializing today’s industrialized, high-potency THC drugs or legalizing dangerous psychoactive drugs.
Second, we should also address who was not in attendance at the meeting. There was no one representing social justice advocates, scientists and public health experts concerned about the harms of marijuana commercialization. Many of these experts have studied the socioeconomic effects of lax marijuana policies, including the fact that pot shops are often concentrated in and target poorer and non-white communities on purpose, much like menthol cigarettes target Black communities. One of us, as the first drug czar for this nation’s first Black president, always said that “legalization is not in the president’s vocabulary” partially because of the disproportionate impact that addiction and drug use have on our most vulnerable.
Our country has made significant progress with respect to criminal justice reform without legalizing marijuana. According to a 2023 U.S. Sentencing Commission report, we reduced the number of offenders sentenced for simple marijuana possession from 2,172 in 2014 to just 145 in 2021. The facts also dispel the popular myth that our prisons are filled with people incarcerated for smoking a joint. As of January 2022, in fact, no one was in federal prison solely for simple marijuana possession. Likewise, there are few people if any serving time in state prisons for simple, low-level possession.
While Biden should be praised for his stance opposing legalization and supporting expungement and removing penalties, rescheduling marijuana would be an abandonment of his efforts to keep drugs off our streets.
Drug scheduling is not a harm index. It is a legal term that categorizes drugs based on medical benefit and potential for abuse. From a scientific basis, marijuana fails to meet the statutory requirements for any schedule other than Schedule I. Marijuana is not one medical product, but rather represents hundreds of thousands of different products completely untested and unregulated by federal authorities. Therefore, it fails the first legal test for rescheduling.
It is also more dangerous than people think. In fact, the drug has undergone a transformation in its addictive potential. Today’s marijuana is nothing like Woodstock-era weed.
Harris’s roundtable lacked any mention of the medically demonstrable harms associated with today’s high-potency THC drugs. Because of commercialization, marijuana’s THC (the component that gets a user high) potency has skyrocketed from 2 to 5 percent in the 1970s to upwards of 99 percent. The rise in potency has corresponded with an increase in addiction. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, one in three marijuana users will become addicted, a level clearly meeting the Schedule I standard of “high potential for abuse.”
Research also shows that marijuana can worsen anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress, and suicidality. It can also cause psychosis and even schizophrenia. A study published last month by the Journal of the American Heart Association demonstrated that daily marijuana use increases one’s chances of having a heart attack by 25 percent and a stroke by 42 percent.
Pot profiteers know the addictive potential of marijuana. After all, their business model requires repeat customers and addiction. The industry continues to market products to impressionable and vulnerable populations to hook a new generation of users. Marijuana’s addictive quality is also a major reason Big Tobacco wants the drug to be rescheduled.
Reclassifying marijuana to Schedule III would allow the industry to get around IRS regulations that prevent the deduction of ordinary business expenses. This change would infuse the industry with billions of dollars overnight, allowing it to market addiction more often in more places.
Biden understands the harms of marijuana use, which is likely why he has never supported legalization. Instead, he has long favored striking a balance between public health and criminal justice. This is why it’s disappointing that Harris’s roundtable did not balance these ideas. Publicly acknowledging that certain reforms such as decriminalization don’t have to come at the price of public health and safety would have been a more holistic message.
Gil Kerlikowske was the Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy between 2009 and 2014. Kevin Sabet is a three-time former White House drug policy advisor.