Democratic Platform Touts Marijuana Reforms but Doesn’t Mention Legalization, More… (8/19/24)

The Biden administration opposes eliminating marijuana testing for navy recruits, the Philippines’ main household political dynasties are preventing like two scorpions in a bottle over drug battle accountability, and extra. 

Marijuana Coverage

Biden Administration Comes Out Towards Eliminating Marijuana Testing for Army Recruits. The White Home’s Workplace of Administration and Price range (OMB) has issued a press release addressing varied provisions of the 2024 protection spending invoice, the Nationwide Protection Authorization Act. In that assertion, it opposes an modification that might get rid of marijuana testing for navy recruits. 

“The Administration appreciates Congress’ want to extend the accessible navy accessions pool,” the assertion reads.” Nevertheless, the Administration opposes Part 532, which might stop DoD from testing candidates for Δ9-THC and Δ8-THC contained in marijuana (hashish). The usage of marijuana by Service members is a navy readiness and security concern.”

The modification was accredited final month by the Home Armed Companies Subcommittee on Army Personnel and was initially a transfer spearheaded by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), who mentioned that eliminating marijuana testing of recruits may assist the navy meet its recruitment targets. 

Democratic Platform Will Tout Marijuana Reforms however Does Not Point out Legalization. Delegates to the Democratic Nationwide Conference will vote on a celebration platform at present that touts President Biden’s marijuana rescheduling strikes and marijuana pardons and requires broader reform to expunge previous information of marijuana offenses. However although Vice President Kamala Harris has embraced marijuana legalization, the platform comprises no language on decriminalization or legalization, a step again from the 2020 platform. 

This yr’s platform says that the Biden administration took “historic motion” on marijuana and legal justice coverage, citing the pardons. 

“Nobody needs to be in jail only for utilizing or possessing marijuana,” the platform says. “Sending folks to jail for possession has upended too many lives and incarcerated folks for conduct that many states not prohibit. These legal information impose useless obstacles to employment, housing, and academic alternatives, disproportionately affecting Black and brown folks. President Biden took historic motion to finish this failed strategy by pardoning folks convicted federally for utilizing or possessing marijuana. He has known as on governors to make use of their pardon energy to do the identical for state-level offenses. And his Administration is taking a serious step to reschedule marijuana so it’s not categorized as extra harmful than fentanyl or methamphetamine.”

Though Biden is not the nominee-to-be, the platform language referencing him stays unchanged. It additionally says that Democrats “will take motion to expunge federal marijuana-only convictions.” 

However there is no such thing as a point out of decriminalization or legalization, an omission cheered by Kevin Sabet, president of the prohibitionist group Good Approaches to Marijuana (SAM), who counseled those that “helped a lot behind the scenes.”

Nonetheless, the platform goes after Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, which it pointedly notes “threatened federal prosecution for marijuana instances in states the place marijuana was authorized” by rescinding Obama-era steerage that usually urged discretion in imposing prohibition for cannabis-related exercise that was authorized beneath state regulation.

“Trump’s strategy to legal justice couldn’t be extra completely different,” it says. “His Administration threatened federal prosecution for marijuana instances in states the place marijuana was authorized.”

The GOP platform doesn’t point out marijuana however as an alternative enunciates a troublesome anti-drug agenda. As an illustration, the Republicans mentioned they’d “crack down arduous on” and “demolish” drug cartels.

Worldwide

Philippines Political Dynasties Squabble Over Supporting ICC Investigation into Former President Duterte’s Drug Struggle. The Duterte and Marcos political dynasties are at odds over how a lot help to provide the Worldwide Prison Court docket (ICC) because it investigates the position of former President Rodrigo Duterte and several other high-ranking cops within the bloody battle on medication that marked his time period in workplace. 

The squabbling comes amidst reviews that President Ferdinand “Bong Bong” Marcos Jr. and his administration had given assurances to ICC personnel that they’d not intervene with the group’s work within the nation. 

“We can’t cease the ICC prosecutor from investigating. That’s his mandate. He can interview anybody by cellphone, by e mail, by native organizations, even face-to-face if the topic consents to be interviewed,” mentioned Solicitor Basic Menardo Guevarra.

Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla additionally weighed in, even including that the federal government can’t cease Interpol if it seeks to hold out a lawful arrest within the nation. “We’re not within the enterprise of blocking any motion of the Interpol except a coverage is laid out, which after all will go in opposition to our worldwide commitments,” he mentioned.

That sparked former police chief Ronald “Bato” Dela Rosa to handle the Senate and demand that it again him and the Dutertes. “I wish to ask the members of this august physique,” he mentioned. “The place do you stand in defending our residents?”

Dela Rosa complained that these statements contradicted earlier statements from President Marcos, who has repeatedly mentioned that the nation wouldn’t cooperate within the probe due to issues over sovereignty and jurisdiction. Dela Rosa additionally warned that if anybody makes an arrest primarily based on an ICC arrest, they may very well be answerable for the crime of illegal detention. 

The squabbling displays a rising hole between the Dutertes and the Marcoses, with either side accusing the opposite of being on medication. Duterte has known as Marcos a drug addict, whereas Marcos retorted that Duterte is on fentanyl. Duterte’s son final week filed a invoice requiring all officers to bear drug testing. And allies of the Marcoses have begun congressional hearings on the proliferation of medicine and extra-judicial killings in Duterte’s drug battle. Lawmakers allied with Marcos mentioned the hearings will “assist in the prosecution and conviction of the perpetrators, conspirators, and masterminds of the entire legal community.” They added that the probe is a part of “the journey of ferreting the reality, searching for justice, and therapeutic of our folks.”

(This text was ready by StoptheDrugWar.org’s 501(c)(4) lobbying nonprofit, the Drug Reform Coordination Community, which additionally pays the price of sustaining this web site. DRCNet Basis takes no positions on candidates for public workplace, in compliance with part 501(c)(3) of the Inner Income Code and doesn’t pay for reporting that may very well be interpreted or misinterpreted as doing so.)