Author Alex Berenson mocked President Biden’s pardon of all prior federal offenses of simple marijuana possession as nothing more than “pure theater,” calling it a “meaningless” gesture meant to placate leftists.
(Video Credit: CBS News)
President Biden and Democrats would love to present the move as one that shifts toward decriminalizing the drug. It ostensibly only applies to those convicted of simple possession of marijuana and therefore does no such thing.
Berenson, who wrote “Tell Your Children: The Truth About Marijuana, Mental Illness, and Violence,” is not impressed and doesn’t have a problem with the pardon for a number of reasons.
“I don’t have a huge problem with this for a couple reasons, I mean, I don’t think anybody should be in prison for marijuana possession. That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t necessarily put people in prison for trafficking, or farming, but possession, I think there is a pretty clear consensus that you shouldn’t go to jail for that,” Berenson told Fox News Digital in an interview.
“But more importantly, this is just pure theater… effectively it’s meaningless,” he asserted. “It’s actually theater in a good way for those of us that don’t support full national legalization.”
As I’ve said before, no one should be in jail just for using or possessing marijuana.
Today, I’m taking steps to end our failed approach. Allow me to lay them out.
— President Biden (@POTUS) October 6, 2022
Biden: “No one should be in jail just for using or possessing marijuana.”
What about for using crack while with Asian and Russian hookers that you @POTUS helped pay for?
— Shukri Abdirahman (@ShuForCongress) October 8, 2022
Evidently, much of the left had assumed that Biden would go for national legalization of marijuana. But that didn’t happen. What the president did was more of a gesture than a definitive move toward the legalization of the drug.
“He seems to have, personally, strong feelings about this,” Berenson commented. “He has basically indicated that he’s not going to allow legalization and I think this was essentially a sop to people in his administration who wanted to look good before the midterms.”
The White House asserts that the pardons will help people with simple marijuana possession convictions overcome obstacles to finding a job or renting a home. But Berenson sees it as throwing a bone to appease pro-pot Democrats.
“There is no one in federal prison, currently, for simple marijuana possession,” Berenson pointed out. “I think this is about the least he could possibly do.”
What Joe Biden did today with marijuana possession is going to lead to a massive expansion in the number of jam bands. It sounds harmless now until you've been subjected to a 23-minute bass solo
— Jack Kimble (@RepJackKimble) October 6, 2022
“By the way, [Biden] didn’t extend it to trafficking, he didn’t do something that could have led to a meaningful number of people getting out of prison,” he added. “It’s theater, and to the extent that he’s making a policy decision, I don’t actually necessarily disagree with him.”
Biden urged governors to issue pardons concerning state marijuana offenses. He instructed Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra and Attorney General Merrick Garland to begin the review process of how the drug is classified under federal drug laws as well.
Berenson does not support marijuana and has been a critic of its allowed use for years. He thinks that the support for the use of the drug is built on a false premise. The author also believes that it has been “legalized in the worst possible way” in states where the sale and use of the drug have been legitimized because it’s often connected to medicine.
Biden is legalizing marijuana because you’d have to be high to vote for his ass.
— Lavern Spicer 🇺🇸 (@lavern_spicer) October 6, 2022
“It’s an intoxicant that people use to get high,” he charged. “We legalized it under false pretenses. We lied about its risks and in the years since we’ve legalized it there has been a huge upsurge in crime, nationally. Obviously, that’s not all due to cannabis legalization but one of the promises of legalization was ‘this is gonna help cops focus on serious crime, and we’re going to see crime go down,’ but that is not what’s happened in the United States.”
Berenson says that legalization has “been a disastrous experience already.” He also contends that what Biden just did won’t improve matters.
“It’s only getting worse,” he concluded.
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