How Biden’s marijuana pardons could change thousands of lives

The plan likely won’t free anyone from prison, but it could help justice-impacted people after they get out

On Thursday, President Joe Biden made a surprise announcement that he would be using his powers to pardon people with low-level federal marijuana convictions.

“Sending people to prison for possessing marijuana has upended too many lives and incarcerated people for conduct that many states no longer prohibit,” Mr Biden said in a statement on Thursday.

As it stands, 37 states and the District of Columbia have legal medical marijuana, while 19 states have passed recreational cannabis laws. The drug still remains illegal at the federal level.

The pardon applies to people convicted of simple possession of cannabis.

“Criminal records for marijuana possession have also imposed needless barriers to employment, housing, and educational opportunities,” the president added.

Here’s what you need to know about the new policy.

How does it work?

In addition to announcing the plan on Thursday, the president formally issued the “full, complete, and unconditional pardon” to the people affected under the plan on the same day.

Now, according to the White House, it’s up to Attorney General Merrick Garland and the Justice Department’s Office of the Pardon Attorney to create and announce the application process for pardons under the new plan.

Those with past convictions for simple cannabis possession under the federal and Washington, DC, statutes 21 U.S.C. 844 and D.C. Code 48–904.01(d)(1) would be able to apply for pardons. And the president’s announcement also effectively stops future federal prosecutions, at least by the Biden Justice Department, for these crimes going forward.

As the Office of the Pardon Attorney notes, however, a pardon isn’t quite the same thing as a full expungement, which would fully erase mention of the individual in question’s past marijuana conviction.

“While a presidential pardon will restore various rights lost as a result of the pardoned offense and should lessen to some extent the stigma arising from a conviction, it will not erase or expunge the record of your conviction,” the office notes on its website. “Therefore, even if you are granted a pardon, you must still disclose your conviction on any form where such information is required, although you may also disclose the fact that you received a pardon. “

The president’s plan also calls for federal officials to study reclassifying marijuana. Right now, under the Controlled Substances Act, cannabis is a Schedule I drug, meaning the federal government holds that it offers no accepted medical value and a high risk of abuse. Lowering marijuana’s status could make it easier for medical experts to research, and lessen future punishments for marijuana offences.

How many people will it affect?

Though Mr Biden’s announcement is a major symbolic step towards federal marjuana decriminalistion, as well as a significant personal break from the president’s past War on Drugs politics, the actual impact of the pardon plan is fairly modest.

The White House told reporters on Thursday it believes over 6,500 people who’ve since left prison with federal possession records will be helped, as well thousands more with DC convictions.

“There are no individuals currently in federal prison solely for simple possession of marijuana,” a senior Biden official added.

The policy explicitly leaves out unauthorised migrants to the US, meaning non-citizen immigrants and asylum-seekers could still be deported for conduct that is now protected under federal action.

The vast majority of marijuana prisoners, as well as incarcerated people more broadly, are serving state prison sentences in state facilities, not federal ones.

According to data from the US Sentencing Commission, the number of federal convictions for simple marijuana possession alone has ranged from about 150 in fiscal year 2021, which ended last June, to 2,000 people in 2015. Currently, those convicted of marijuana crimes of any kind make up just less than 6 per cent of the roughly 18,000 people serving federal drug sentences, according to the commission.

What kind of impact can a pardon have?

As The Independent has reported, there are numerous “collateral consequences” of incarceration, hidden impacts that continue once a prison sentence is over.

Roughly nine in 10 employers, four in five landlords, and three in five colleges use criminal background checks to screen applicants.

By some estimates, there are nearly 5,000 laws on the books which bar people with past convictions from most of the necessities of life like housing, loans, work, access to government services.

In January, Jonathan Travis, an experienced welder from Texas, finished a drug possession sentence.

He told The Independent he’s struggled to find work since.

“As soon as my background came in, they told me nevermind,” he said. “I got hired at a couple different jobs, basically. I can’t go to staffing agencies. I couldn’t even get into Domino’s pizza.”

Employers told him he couldn’t be hired until his conviction was at least four or five years in the past, meaning that he had to look elsewhere for a long time before seeking work in his field at the lucrative oil plants in his hometown of Baytown, Texas.

“All the major plants that are in my town, I can’t go into none of those because I can’t pass,” he said.

Though a certified pardon wouldn’t be the same thing as a full expungement, it could go some ways to reduce the stigma facing many justice-impacted people.

“What employers miss out on is a wide range of knowledge and skills that we have yet to fully maximize from folks who are formerly incarcerated because of the stigma we have,” Jamira Burley, senior fellow at the Responsible Business Initiative for Justice, an advocacy group, told The Independent earlier this year.

How is Washington reacting to the decision?

Predictably, the pardon plan has proved divisive on partisan lines.

Liberal legislators and justice activists celebrated Mr Biden’s decision as one of many steps needed to undo the harms of the War on Drugs.

“For years, I’ve stood with millions of Americans calling on multiple administrations to take action to issue pardons and decriminalize cannabis,” Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts said on Twitter on Thursday. “This move by President Biden is a historic decision — and it’s the right thing to do.”

Meanwhile, many Republicans hammered the move.

“In the midst of a crime wave and on the brink of a recession, Joe Biden is giving blanket pardons to drug offenders — many of whom pled down from more serious charges,” Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas wrote in a statement. “This is a desperate attempt to distract from failed leadership.”

What comes next?

Now, the federal government will set about implementing the president’s new plan.

Progressives are calling for continued steps like full cannabis legalisation, full record expungement, and incentives for justice-impacted people to join the legal marjuana industry.

New York, for example, has offered its first round of cannabis dispensary licences to those with past marijuana convictions, in recognition of the often deeply racially skewed ways America’s drug laws have been enforced on communities of colour.

“President Biden’s decision to pardon all federal offences of simple marijuana possession brings us that much closer to restoring justice in our communities that have been targeted for decades,” congressman Jamaal Bowman of New York said on Thursday, adding, “Today’s announcement will reunite thousands of families and communities. We need to deschedule marijuana, legalize it in every state and pardon all who have been convicted of marijuana possession - now!”