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Posted inEditorials


PROPOSAL TO RECLASSIFY MARIJUANA SIGNALS IMPORTANT SHIFT AWAY FROM FAILED
PUNITIVE APPROACH

by The BDN Editorial Board 2 hours agoMay 14, 2024


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A marijuana plant is visible at a medical marijuana dispensary in Egg Harbor
Township, N.J., March 22, 2019. Credit: Julio Cortez / AP

The BDN Editorial Board operates independently from the newsroom, and does not
set policies or contribute to reporting or editing articles elsewhere in the
newspaper or on bangordailynews.com.

A proposal from the Biden administration to reclassify marijuana as a less
dangerous substance is a good step in ending America’s long, and failed, war on
drugs. However, much more remains to be done to align federal drug policy with
the realities, and real dangers, of substance use.

The Associated Press reported late last month that the Drug Enforcement
Administration will soon begin the process of reclassifying marijuana, which
could ease federal restrictions on the medical use of cannabis, which is legal
in 38 states, including Maine. It could also ease restrictions on marijuana
research.

The reclassification would not impact recreational marijuana sales, which are
legal in 23 states, including Maine. It would not necessarily ease restrictions
on banking and loans, which some say have hampered the cannabis industry. In
addition, it would not impact the sentences of those currently incarcerated for
marijuana-related crimes.



Still, industry officials and advocates for the legalization of cannabis hailed
the proposal.

Vince Sliwoski, a Portland, Oregon-based cannabis attorney who runs well-known
legal blogs on those topics, told The Associated Press the proposal was
“paradigm-shifting, and it’s very exciting.”

“I can’t emphasize enough how big of news it is,” he said.

The proposed reclassification, which will undergo further federal review and a
public comment period, is significant because it signals a shift in thinking
about cannabis, not because it is a major policy change.

For far too long, the federal government has pursued a punitive policy toward
drug use, which has not reduced overdose deaths and has led to the incarceration
of far too many people — a disproportionate number of them people of color — for
drug offenses.

On this front, recently passed laws in Maine could help more of the state’s
residents move beyond drug convictions, particularly from the time before
recreational cannabis use was legalized in Maine in 2017.



Under a law signed last month by Gov. Janet Mills, more drug-related criminal
records can now be sealed, with the aim of helping more Mainers escape the
stigma of a low-level drug conviction. Another measure will remove the age
requirements for sealing criminal histories.

Peter Lehman, the Maine Prison Advocacy coalition’s legislative director, told
 lawmakers he has worked with hundreds of people who are burdened repeatedly by
criminal histories when seeking jobs, housing and even recovery services.

“We also want to emphasize that the burden of a criminal record falls most
heavily on the poor and racial and ethnic minorities who are overrepresented in
Maine’s prisons,” Lehman said in testimony in March. “The northern, poorest and
most rural counties are overrepresented in the Maine prisons partly from the
same dynamic.”



The law changes were among the recommendations from a state panel that reviewed
how the state’s criminal records are handled.

The state and federal changes are important steps in a better approach to
substance use, especially cannabis use, which is now legal in Maine. Lawmakers,
in both Augusta and Washington, can build on them to craft more appropriate drug
policies that do not unnecessarily stigmatize people while focusing resources on
reducing harmful substance use.


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Tagged: Marijuana


THE BDN EDITORIAL BOARD

The Bangor Daily News editorial board members are Publisher Richard J. Warren,
Opinion Editor Susan Young, Deputy Opinion Editor Matt Junker and BDN President
Todd Benoit. Young has worked for the BDN... More by The BDN Editorial Board


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