Pardons for misdemeanor marijuana possession are a vital corrective to the sham war on drugs | Editorial

There are very good reasons for other states, including Pennsylvania and New Jersey, to follow Maryland’s lead in pardoning thousands of people who were convicted of low-level marijuana and drug paraphernalia charges. But the best might be a confession 30 years ago by one of the architects of what became America’s “war on drugs.”

In a 1994 interview, published in 2016 in Harper’s Magazine, former White House counsel John Ehrlichman admitted that President Richard Nixon’s reelection strategy included demonizing “two enemies”: the anti-war left and Black people.

“We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or Black, but by getting the public to associate hippies with marijuana and Blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we would disrupt those communities,” Ehrlichman said. “We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course, we did.”

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Nixon resigned in disgrace after his goons got caught breaking into Democratic Party headquarters at the Watergate Hotel. His campaign strategy lived on, however, as official policy for subsequent Democratic and Republican presidents who discovered the issue resonated in their favor at election time. They portrayed drug abuse as a beast much greater than its actual size and claimed marijuana was the gateway to opioid addiction.

That assertion has never been supported by data collected by the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. It said marijuana was the most commonly abused drug in 2022, with 22% of Americans aged 12 or older (around 62 million people) saying they used it in the past year, but only 3% (nine million people) said they abused heroin or other opioids. That doesn’t sound like a gateway. In fact, prescription drug abuse is more likely to lead to an opioid addiction.

That does not mean marijuana use isn’t dangerous. Like alcohol, it should be regulated, and its users held responsible for their subsequent actions while under its influence. However, with Maryland and other states now admitting that incarceration for simply possessing marijuana did not always fit the crime, it’s time for new legal standards to be set and applied both retroactively and going forward.

Thirty-eight states and the District of Columbia have legalized the medical use of marijuana, and 24 states and D.C. have made recreational marijuana use legal. By doing that two years ago, Maryland set the stage to pardon more than 150,000 people (some deceased) who were convicted of a misdemeanor for possession of marijuana. Another 18,000 to be pardoned were convicted of possession with intent to use drug paraphernalia.

“This is about changing how both government and society view those who have been walled off from opportunity because of broken and uneven policies,” said Maryland Gov. Wes Moore. He noted the disproportionate impact of Nixon’s politically conceived, lock-them-up drug policies that other presidents continued to impose on Black and brown people. “We cannot celebrate the benefits of legalization if we do not address the consequences of criminalization,” Moore said.

The Drug Enforcement Administration has also begun steps to reclassify marijuana as a less dangerous Schedule III drug, along with ketamine and some anabolic steroids, instead of a Schedule I drug, which includes heroin and LSD. And while that bureaucratic step won’t legalize the recreational use of marijuana, the Senate is considering a bill that will.

“It’s past time for the federal government to catch up to the attitudes of the American people when it comes to cannabis,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.

» READ MORE: Marijuana laws are wrong. But Biden’s mass pardon isn’t right. | Kyle Sammin

If the Democratic bill is successful, which doesn’t seem likely given the current partisan divide in Congress, it will be a victory for every American frustrated with their national government’s inability to address societal changes that require immediate action. A patchwork of state laws is no substitute for a uniform federal standard that would finally remove labels applied to marijuana by conniving politicians trying to win votes with law-and-order platforms.

Making the punishment fit the crime is even more significant as the country decides whether to vote for a felon whose conviction did not disqualify him from holding what is supposed to be the most trusted position in our government. People who can’t get a fast-food restaurant job after listing a conviction on a job application should feel cheated. Once again, the Constitution has been outed as archaic and sorely in need of changes reflecting what America is today.

Voters will get the last word on whether justice will ultimately prevail when they go to the polls in November. Until then, let’s savor Maryland’s decision to vacate minor marijuana convictions that never should have occurred and won’t occur now that the state’s old cannabis laws have been updated.

Perhaps justice delayed isn’t always justice denied, even if it’s not as satisfying.