April16,2024 PresidentJosephBiden

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is currently evaluating the August 2023 recommendation by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to reschedule marijuana to Schedule III of the CSA. [...] However, the CSA gives the DEA discretion to make a different final determination than the HHS recommendation as to the schedule placement of marijuana. [...] To take the next steps towards fulfilling this pledge, you must begin to explicitly support the descheduling of marijuana from the CSA. [...] Additionally, your administration can and should take immediate executive action - even while marijuana remains in Schedule I of the CSA - to lessen the harms of marijuana criminalization, such as expanding pardons and commutations for sentences beyond simple marijuana possession, ending marijuana-based deportations, and revising federal agency policies, particularly those involving the collateral. [...] Pardons for simple possession cases are a good first step but as Vice President Harris recently said at the March 15, 2024 Roundtable Conversation about Marijuana Reform, “there still is much more to do.” As President and Vice President, the most important next step for you is to publicly and explicitly call for the descheduling of marijuana from the CSA.