He absolutely promised to fully decriminalize. Instead all we got was a committee to look into looking into considering reducing the scheduling of cannabis. It was an empty promise, like every democrat before him because if they actually did something they wouldn’t be able to keep dangling the carrot for votes. Source: https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/biden-promise-tracker/promise/1529/decriminalize-marijuana/
Decriminalization is not the same as legalization. In terms of legalization, he only supported legalization for medical marijuana which is the process he started. He actually pledged to move it to schedule 2 but has started the process to move it to schedule 3. That process is getting closer for what it’s worth. The DEA has really dragged it out but it’s nearly at the end with the public hearing in December
From the source that politico links to
he will support the legalization of cannabis for medical purposes
[…]
reschedule cannabis as a schedule II drug so researchers can study its positive and negative impacts.
So he promised to decriminalize, but did nothing to make good on that promise until most of his term in office had passed, and that’s why we aren’t done with the lengthy process to get there yet. Your answers throughout the discussion seem to keep glossing over the bolded part. (unless I have some misunderstanding, which is possible)
And that is the part that makes me doubtful Kamala will be any different.
He actually started the reschedule process in 2022, but before that there were attempts by dems to do legalization via legislation but in the senate that didn’t end up getting enough votes.
Rescheduling via legislation is more direct and skips the lengthy process describe in the law for executive action. The president is not able to immediately snap their fingers and reschedule. People within the DEA / other agencies have showed it down since 2022. It’s at the last stages now after the public comment hearing in December. For what it’s worth, as VP Harris did try to call on the agencies to speed up said process but she has no direct power to do so
Ah, the article linked above seemed to say that he’d just begun the process this past May, but maybe I misread it. I will read it again.,
The part that happened in May was the actual rule being formally proposed.
It [the formal rule proposal] is the next step in the rescheduling process begun by Biden in October 2022, and follows a recommendation by the Department of Health and Human Services in August to reclassify marijuana.
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/16/biden-announces-marijuana-reclassification-00158408