The Biden administration’s Department of Health and Human Services has recommended that cannabis, or marijuana, be reclassified as a Schedule III drug, down from a Schedule I, under the Controlled Substances Act. In other words, the Biden admin is seeking to go from saying marijuana has no medical benefits to saying it has limited therapeutic potential under strict physician supervision -- but stopped short of advising that it be federally decriminalized.

The problem with this reclassification is that it does not address the social and racial justice issues caused by criminalizing marijuana.

Rescheduling it would still uphold federal criminal penalties for mere possession, even for those abiding by state-level adult-use and medical cannabis laws. Rescheduling marijuana will not release anyone currently incarcerated for a marijuana conviction or expunge any marijuana-related records. Nor would it address the immigration related consequences, which are a leading cause of deportation of immigrants to the U.S., or restore eligibility for public benefits such as housing and nutritional assistance for people with marijuana convictions.

Rescheduling keeps marijuana illegal, instead of fulfilling President Biden’s promise to decriminalize it.

During his 2020 presidential campaign, President Biden vowed to decriminalize cannabis. To truly fulfill this promise and address social and racial justice, he must remove cannabis entirely from the Controlled Substances Act, not merely reschedule it. President Biden can and must do more.