Biden Under Pressure for Marijuana Reform After Brittney Griner Release

Authored by newsweek.com and submitted by BelleAriel
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The negotiated prisoner swap by the Biden administration to bring WNBA player Brittney Griner home has led to cheers nationwide while shining a larger light on the United States' criminal justice system.

Griner was swapped Thursday for notorious Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout after she was held in a Russian jail cell for about 10 months. She had been sentenced to nine years in prison by Russian authorities for possession of vape canisters containing cannabis oil.

Erik Altieri, executive director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), called Griner's imprisonment "a grotesque affront to the concept of justice."

"However, it should also cause a serious level of reflection amongst our lawmakers considering that a large number of states still inflict similar penalties for marijuana possession on our own soil, and the current federal policy of marijuana prohibition isn't notably different than the stance held by [President Vladimir] Putin's regime in Russia," Altieri added.

Toi Hutchinson, president and CEO of the Marijuana Policy Project, told Newsweek that her organization vows to continue the fight for cannabis legalization and to free Americans "unfairly imprisoned."

"We will not stop fighting until both the plant and the people are freed," Hutchinson said.

'Hard to Say' if Griner's Status Impacted Her Release

Those perspectives are shared by numerous other organizations that work daily to reform both federal marijuana laws and the U.S. criminal justice system.

Marc Schindler is executive director of the Justice Policy Institute, which is celebrating its 25th year focused on criminal justice and youth justice-related issues.

The group says about 2.3 million Americans are incarcerated annually, which could fill over 42 football fields or the state of New Mexico. Black citizens comprise about 48 percent of inmates with the longest sentences, while 40 states and Washington, D.C., spend $100,000 or more annually on confined youth.

Schindler told Newsweek the Justice Policy Institute is "pleased" to see Griner's return, calling her situation "a travesty of justice." He hopes that all U.S. citizens unjustly detained will return home as well.

When asked about the Griner case garnering so much attention due to her being a known public figure, when most others likely would not receive the same treatment, Schindler said it's always "a good thing" when issues regarding drug policies, incarceration and the proper use of tax dollars are front and center in the public consciousness.

"Would there have been a different type of attention, more rapid movement had it been a white high-profile basketball player?" said Schindler, who acknowledged that Griner's case is complicated in terms of international politics. "It's hard to say....It's not hard to say that Black and brown people get treated particularly differently than their white counterparts."

Mass Incarceration Disproportionately Affects Black Americans

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) reported that marijuana arrests account for over half of all U.S. drug arrests. Of the approximate 8.2 million marijuana arrests between 2001 and 2010, 88 percent were for simple possession.

"Nationwide, the arrest data revealed one consistent trend: significant racial bias," the ACLU reported. "Despite roughly equal usage rates, Blacks are 3.73 times more likely than whites to be arrested for marijuana."

According to the Drug Policy Alliance, in 2019 over 90 percent of the 350,149 cannabis-related arrests were for possession.

Nick Turner, president and director of the Vera Institute of Justice, told Newsweek that the Griner situation "absolutely does warrant a more in-depth discussion of domestic marijuana laws and the criminal legal system in the U.S."

"Marijuana policy decisions have hurt millions, particularly Black people and other people of color, who have been targeted, surveilled, and penalized more harshly than whites," Turner said. "The United States has a responsibility to people injured by these policies to take reformative steps."

Kara Gotsch, deputy director of The Sentencing Project, told Newsweek that Griner's release "is cause for celebration." It also shines a light on what can be done domestically.

"Unfortunately, the United States is intimately familiar with the trauma and harms caused by incarceration because this nation leads the world in its use," Gotsch said. "President Biden has acknowledged the U.S. over-incarceration problem and we urge him to more vigorously utilize his clemency powers to release the many people serving extreme sentences who could safely return to their communities and loved ones."

Biden Administration Is Moving in a Positive Direction, Critics Say

David Muhammad, executive director of the National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform (NICJR), has a slightly different perspective.

"The criticism of the prisoner swap seems quite shortsighted, given the enormous amount of guns trafficked in the United States by Americans, legally and illegally," Muhammad told Newsweek.

"Brittney's crime was no crime at all, and just like she did not deserve to spend one day in a horrible Russian jail, neither do the hundreds of thousands of mostly Black people arrested and incarcerated for marijuana in America deserve to spend one day in a terrible U.S. jail," Muhammad added.

That includes moving forward with reclassifying marijuana from its current Schedule I designation, he said, and working with individual states to legalize, as many have already done.

Currently, 26 states and the District of Columbia have fully legalized marijuana.

On October 26, President Biden announced a multi-pronged approach to marijuana reform that includes a pardon of all prior federal offenses of simple possession, urging state governors to also pardon offenders, and changing the aforementioned classification.

Currently, marijuana is the same schedule as heroin and LSD, and viewed as more dangerous than fentanyl and methamphetamine.

On December 2, Biden signed the bipartisan Medical Marijuana and Cannabidiol Research Expansion Act. It aims to allow for more research of cannabis and could potentially speed up reclassification.

Schindler, who has credited the Biden administration for taking on more of a leadership role for such reforms, has encouraged the current Congress to reclassify marijuana during the lame duck session.

"We're at a very different place now than in the '80s and '90s, during the peak of the Drug War and the demonization of young Black males," he said. "I think there's a recognition among party lines that we need to do things differently."

The White House referred Newsweek to comments made Thursday by press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.

Ra1nydaysz on December 10th, 2022 at 02:38 UTC »

This is ridiculous, marijuana has done nothing but good for the states it was legalized in, MASSIVE income boosts and job opportunities

BadUncleBernie on December 9th, 2022 at 23:21 UTC »

Been legal here in Canada for 4 years. Nobody cares. Absolutely nothing bad has happened. Stop at the Walmart, beer store and weed store. Bob's your uncle .

IT_Chef on December 9th, 2022 at 21:29 UTC »

Man, just make it as legal as booze.

Want specific industries/professions to be "drug free"...so be it, but the majority of us will be fine without required prohibition.