12 Senate Democrats, including Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, urged the DEA in a letter to remove marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act altogether.

Senate Democrats are putting new pressure on the Biden administration to ease federal restrictions on marijuana in a new letter to the Drug Enforcement Administration on Tuesday as it considers rescheduling cannabis after it was federally classified more than five decades ago.

The Department of Health and Human Services formally recommended in August that the DEA move the drug from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act, or CSA, prompting a monthslong review, which continues.

The letter, from 12 senators led by Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and John Fetterman, D-Pa., and signed by Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., goes further.

“The case for removing marijuana from Schedule I is overwhelming. The DEA should do so by removing cannabis from the CSA altogether, rather than simply placing it in a lower schedule,” the senators wrote in the letter, first obtained by NBC News.

  • frezik@midwest.social
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    10 months ago

    It’s more akin to Nixon’s Saturday Night Massacre, where he kept ordering the next Attorney General successor to fire a special prosecutor until someone finally did it. This finally convinced Congress to get off their ass and start the impeachment process. Republicans then spent the next few decades building a system to make sure a Republican President would never have to face consequences like that again.

    • PopOfAfrica@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Right, that’s kind of my point. Presidents can do a whole lot to cover their own ass and do illegal activities, but they can’t do anything to help the people, such as decriminalizing marijuana.

      It’s a gross double standard.

      • lolcatnip@reddthat.com
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        10 months ago

        Some of us think that kind of thing is unacceptable no matter who the president is.

        • PopOfAfrica@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          Do you find it more objectionable than locking people up for marijuana possession, ruining their lives? I dont

          • lolcatnip@reddthat.com
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            10 months ago

            Changing the DEA scheduling well change things a lot less than you seem to think. It’s states that lock people up for simple possession, not the federal government.