NEW YORK — In response to the Biden Administration’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announcement today recommending rescheduling marijuana under the federal Controlled Substances Act (CSA) from Schedule I to Schedule III, JustLeadershipUSA (JLUSA) issued the following statement:
“The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) announcement to reschedule marijuana under Schedule III, while being a step in the right direction, is superficial, too incremental, and only serves to continue the most serious harms impacting Black and Brown communities that continue to be disproportionately targeted by marijuana criminalization. Further, this descheduling announcement flies in the face of President Biden’s 2021 promise to ‘decriminalize the use of cannabis and automatically expunge all prior cannabis use convictions,’ as well as eliminate mandatory minimums for all drug convictions.
“Rescheduling in this manner only results in maintaining possession-based, federal, criminal penalties against those in compliance with state-level adult-use and medical cannabis laws. JustLeadershipUSA implores President Biden to fulfill his campaign promise in a meaningful way by fully decriminalizing marijuana; it must be removed from the CSA entirely. Deschedule, not reschedule is the goal.”