We appreciate your personal acknowledgement of the harms of marijuana criminalization, including racial disparities in enforcement, and your Administration’s efforts to reform federal marijuana policies. However, during the 2020 presidential race, you promised to “decriminalize marijuana use and automatically expunge prior marijuana convictions” -- and to date, neither promise has been delivered.

Despite your 2022 and 2023 pardons for simple federal marijuana possession, attempted possession, and use, moving marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III would continue federal marijuana criminalization and is insufficient to fulfill your campaign promises on marijuana. It would also fall short of the commitments you established in your executive orders on equity which seek to embed racial equity into all aspects of federal decision-making.

To fulfill these promises, we urge you to immediately call on the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and Congress to deschedule and decriminalize marijuana. We also urge you to take executive action through executive orders, administrative policy guidance, and other executive authority to ensure that the federal government begins to systematically acknowledge, end, and repair the harms of marijuana criminalization and the War on Drugs. Your leadership on this issue is needed now more than ever.

To take action now, we recommend the following roadmap towards a successful federal marijuana policy:

-Call on the DEA and Congress to deschedule and decriminalize marijuana at the federal level.

- Issue guidance from the Department of Justice that provides protections for individuals for personal activity, including simple possession, attempted possession, and use, and deprioritizes prosecutions for marijuana-based conduct, seeks reduced sentences, and ends marijuana-related deportations.

- Expand pardons and commutations beyond simple marijuana possession, including both civilian and military offenses, and address collateral consequences by restoring benefits for those with previous convictions. Call on states to do the same.

-Direct federal agencies to assess and address barriers caused by federal marijuana criminalization.

- Explicitly support marijuana legalization and call for regulation that protects public health, consumers, and workers. Prepare federal agencies to support small business development and prevent monopolization by big pharma, tobacco, or alcohol.

By explicitly supporting descheduling and decriminalization and immediately taking additional actions like those outlined in this roadmap you have the opportunity to take meaningful action to end marijuana criminalization and right its wrongs.

It’s time for federal marijuana policy to reflect the will of the American people. We hope that, like us, you too, see marijuana reform as both an opportunity and responsibility to right the wrongs of criminalization and advance equity for all.

Thank you for your consideration.