The White House Drug Czar claims that President Obama’s pardons for marijuana and his scheduling directive from last year were part of a coordinated cannabis policy in a patchwork state legalization model.
Rahul Gupta, Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy at the Office of National Drug Control Policy was asked by the House Oversight and Accountability Committee on Thursday to give his opinion on the disconnect that exists between the federal prohibition and normalization of marijuana usage in jurisdictions which have legalized it.
Rep. William Timmons, R-SC, said that it “seems that many of our cities are not holding people accountable or enforcing the criminal code” and that cannabis enforcement trends were a “great instance.”
He said, “If you walk down the street with a glass of wine or beer in Georgetown, you will get a ticket for an open container,” referring to a Washington, D.C. area. “But, if you’re going to smoke marijuana on Wisconsin Ave. and M St. in Washington D.C., knock it out. ‘”
“Marijuana, which is illegal at the federal level, and our nebulous enforcement system, where in South Carolina you can go to jail – or smoke it in the army, you’re kicked out – I mean, we are failing,” said the congressman. “We are failing to create a structure that allows our society to thrive. It’s causing issues.”
Gupta replied by saying “this is why the President last fall took these measures to ensure that people in federal systems who are for simple marijuana possession are pardoned, because it’s about life beyond that.”
He said that the President Joe Biden’s directive to conduct an administrative review of the federal classification of marijuana and his call for state-level cannabis relief by governors are part of a strategy to resolve policy conflicts of the type described by Timmons.
Biden’s pardons in October were only for those who had committed federal cannabis possession crimes up to the date he signed his directive. Since marijuana is still illegal at the federal level, it’s unclear how this would affect the enforcement issues raised by the congressman.
The federal government could potentially adopt uniform regulations if the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and Drug Enforcement Administration’s (DEA) review of the marijuana scheduling results in its descheduling.
Timmons, at the Oversight Hearing last week, reminded Gupta that he is a South Carolina National Guard captain and “we remove people from our military for smoking pot.”
He said that “you cannot walk down a street in D.C., without smelling someone smoking marijuana.” “So, I mean, we have to align our policies with carrots and stick and need to be able to have nuances in order to achieve our goal.”
Gupta explained in a later meeting in response to Rep. Anna Paulina Luna’s (R-FL), that the pardon was “backdated”, and that there is a “mechanism” that the Board of Justice must go through in order to remove those records.
While awaiting the HHS scientific review, DEA Administrator Anne Milgram stated last week that she intends to “keep an Open Mind” .
After receiving the recommendation for scheduling from HHS the agency will perform its own analysis based on eight factors and invite public comments , before making a final decision.
Milgram stated that health officials had not provided a timeline for the review. However, HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra told Marijuana Moment last month it was his hope that agencies of jurisdiction would be able complete their work before the end of the year. It remains to be determined if this will occur.
In March, the Congressional Cannabis Caucus Co-Chair Rep. Earl Blumenauer, along with 15 other members of Congress from both parties, demanded transparency in the review of cannabis’s scheduling.
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