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WASHINGTON - Today, the Associated Press reported that the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is proposing rescheduling marijuana from a Schedule I drug, the most restrictive class, to a Schedule III drug, a less restrictive class. Under this proposed shift, marijuana criminalization would continue at the federal level and most penalties, including those for simple possession, would continue as long as marijuana remains anywhere on the Controlled Substances Act (CSA). On the 2020 campaign trail, then-candidate Biden repeatedly pledged to decriminalize marijuana and expunge related criminal records – identifying these issues as barriers to racial equity. However, the DEA’s proposal would leave most of the harms and racial disparities associated with criminalization unaddressed.
“Supporting federal marijuana decriminalization means supporting the removal of marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act, not changing its scheduling” said Cat Packer, Director of Drug Markets and Legal Regulation. “We all deserve a federal framework for marijuana that upholds the health, wellbeing, and safety of our communities – particularly Black communities who have borne the brunt of our country’s racist enforcement of marijuana laws. Rescheduling marijuana is not a policy solution for federal marijuana criminalization or its harms, and it won’t address the disproportionate impact that it has had on Black and Brown communities.”
Packer continued: “The individuals, families and communities adversely impacted by federal marijuana criminalization deserve more. Workers in the marijuana industry, people who use marijuana, all of us deserve more. Congress and the Biden Administration have a responsibility to take actions now to bring about marijuana reform that meaningfully improves the lives of people who have been harmed by decades of criminalization. Descheduling and legalizing marijuana the right way isn’t just good policy, it’s popular with voters, too.”
A majority of American voters support marijuana legalization and comprehensive reform, according to a Data for Progress poll. Policymakers, health professionals and criminal justice advocates agree that marijuana must be removed from the CSA and coupled with comprehensive Congressional legislative reform to address racial disparities, reduce harm, and move toward a federal marijuana policy and regulatory framework that benefits all communities. Descheduling has also amassed significant support in Congress, with Representatives Blumenauer (D-OR), Joyce (R-OH), Lee (D-CA), and Mast (R-FL) leading their Congressional colleagues in two letters (in December 2022 and October 2023) to the DEA calling for descheduling marijuana, and Senator Warren (D-MA) leading eleven of her colleagues, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-OH), urging President Biden’s Administration to remove marijuana from the CSA.
The Drug Policy Alliance and its coalition partners at United for Marijuana Decriminalization (UMD) plan to launch an ambitious outreach effort to encourage community members to tell President Biden and the DEA that marijuana must be descheduled once the public comment period is open. Members of the public will be able to submit comments in support of descheduling in response to the DEA’s proposal through a simple online form. During the brief, time-limited public comment period, UMD aims to solicit a historic number of public comments through extensive outreach to stakeholders, particularly those who have been harmed by marijuana criminalization, inviting participation in the public process and emphasizing the need for marijuana descheduling.
To end federal marijuana criminalization and create marijuana laws grounded in health, safety, and racial equity, the Drug Policy Alliance, fellow advocates, and Congressional leaders are calling on the DEA to deschedule marijuana by fully removing it from the CSA. While descheduling is critical to eliminating the ongoing harms of federal criminalization, marijuana reform can also take place through Executive Orders and Congressional legislation. President Biden can come closer to fulfilling his promise to end marijuana criminalization by taking immediate action to mitigate the harms of marijuana prohibition in people’s lives.
Additionally, Congressional legislation should provide relief from previous marijuana convictions, restore rights and benefits to people impacted by marijuana criminalization, reinvest in communities disproportionately harmed by criminal enforcement. Additionally, Congressional legislation should create a regulatory framework rooted in equity that prioritizes public health, workplace safety, and fair economic opportunities for small businesses. The House of Representatives has twice passed the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement (MORE) Act, a comprehensive descheduling bill with extensive criminal justice reform and community reinvestment. In 2022, the Senate introduced the Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act (CAOA), the most comprehensive Congressional descheduling bill to date.
Rep. Barbara Lee (CA):
“While the rescheduling of marijuana is a historic step in the right direction, anything short of descheduling falls woefully short of remedying the harms of the current system and the failed racist War on Drugs,” said Rep. Lee. “Rescheduling would allow for the criminal penalties for recreational and medical marijuana use to continue – disproportionately impacting Black and Brown communities. The criminalization of marijuana is also increasingly out of step with state law and public opinion. We need full descheduling and to pass the MORE Act – which I proudly co-lead – as a solution for equitable comprehensive marijuana reform rooted in racial and restorative justice.”
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (NY):
“Descheduling marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act is not just a social justice issue; it’s an economic, medical, and public safety issue. Since marijuana was classified as a Schedule I substance during the war on drugs, countless lives have been torn apart, and individuals in primarily Black and brown communities have been targeted for nonviolent cannabis-related offenses,” said Senator Gillibrand. “Studies show that legalizing marijuana could help reduce violence in international drug trafficking and generate billions of dollars for the economy. The vast majority of Americans agree that marijuana should be legalized – that’s why I’m calling on the Attorney General and the Drug Enforcement Administration to swiftly deschedule marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act.”
Rep. Jerry Nadler (NY):
“While rescheduling marijuana is an important step, we must go further. It is time to end the prohibition and criminalization of marijuana at the federal level. That’s why I have introduced the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement Act, or the MORE Act, which would not only decriminalize marijuana under federal law, but it would also expunge federal marijuana convictions and encourage states to do the same. The bill would also establish a fund to support programs assisting those communities who were most directly harmed by the War on Drugs and ensure that they have equal access to the benefits of decriminalization.”
Amber Senter, Co-Founder, Board Chair, and Executive Director, Supernova Women:
“There’s no doubt that the United States government recognizing cannabis has medicinal benefits is anything short of historic. Advocates have worked tirelessly for decades to reach this moment, banding together as patients, caregivers, social justice activists, and community members. However rescheduling cannabis to Schedule 3 is not enough. People will continue to be criminalized and punished for possessing and consuming cannabis, risking employment, housing, benefits and more. Workers in the cannabis industry will run the risk of federal prosecution for simply going to work and trying to provide for themselves and their families. Patients using cannabis as medicine through legal or state medical programs will also run the risk of federal criminalization by simply choosing a less harmful way to cope with pain from debilitating medical conditions. The war on drugs will continue to rage on, destroying lives and families as it’s done for decades. As a business owner in cannabis, I recognize the much-needed tax relief that rescheduling cannabis to Schedule 3 will bring. However, we cannot continue to allow some to capitalize from cannabis while others, primarily black and brown people, continue to be punished with their lives ruined. We must deschedule cannabis and stop criminalization for a medically beneficial plant.”
Chelsea Higgs Wise, Executive Director, Marijuana Justice:
“Since prohibiting marijuana there has been a targeted enforcement that has left communities of color disproportionately harmed at the individual, familial and community level. Rescheduling only brings benefits to businesses through tax relief, while our loved ones are left with the guarantee of repetitive surveillance, imprisonment, and collateral consequences. Any federal reform must directly address the disproportionate enforcement Black families continue to face. Presidential pardons are important but for true repair, we must continue to demand for marijuana to be descheduled along with people released and records expunged.”
Michelle Rutter Friberg, Director of Government Affairs, National Cannabis Industry Association:
“While rescheduling marijuana to Schedule III will undoubtedly provide much needed tax relief to cannabis businesses, the Biden Administration and Congress must act to deschedule marijuana and remove it from the Controlled Substances Act entirely. Only descheduling marijuana will harmonize federal law with the 37 states with some form of legal cannabis commerce, allow for the implementation of sensible regulations on hemp and marijuana derived products, and create a level playing field for small and minority owned businesses in the industry.”
Dr. Rachel Knox, MD, MBA, Board Chair, Association for Cannabis Health Equity and Medine (ACHEM):
“Cannabis must be removed from the Controlled Substances Act. From inception, its scheduling has been public health enemy #1, as it has underpinned decades of racist and classist provocation, perpetuating systemic harms directly linked to generational poverty and escalating health disparities in marginalized communities. Rescheduling does nothing to unravel this framework and, in fact, will allow it to continue unchecked. The only remedy to this chronic threat is descheduling, the swift overhaul of discriminatory cannabis policies across all sectors, and thoughtful regulation of diverse cannabis markets with standards rooted in science and social justice.”
Lt. Diane Goldstein (Ret.), Executive Director, Law Enforcement Action Partnership:
“As the failed policies of marijuana prohibition continue to drag on and waste law enforcement resources, the DEA’s move to reschedule marijuana to a less restrictive class would simply not go far enough,” she said. “It would not end federal marijuana criminalization and would do little to rectify the harms of the current system, in which an arrest record can lead to fewer employment opportunities, limited housing options, and obstacles to obtaining loans, all of which make people more, not less, disposed to crime and further drug use. The only way to end this unnecessary criminalization and its harms is to completely remove marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act.”
Dasheeda Dawson, Chair, Cannabis Regulators of Color Coalition and Founding Director, Cannabis NYC:
“The time for descheduling cannabis is not just a matter of policy; it’s an imperative for justice and equity. Rescheduling would undermine the hard-fought progress made by cannabis equity and policy reform leaders like the Cannabis Regulators of Color Coalition, jeopardizing the livelihoods and futures of those entrepreneurs and communities disproportionately affected by past criminalization. We cannot afford to backtrack on our commitment to repair the harm inflicted by outdated policies. Descheduling is not just about legality; it’s about rectifying historic injustices and ensuring a fair and inclusive future for all.”
Weldon Angelos, President & Co-Founder, The Weldon Project:
”As an advocate for ending federal marijuana prohibition, I acknowledge that the DEA’s decision to reschedule marijuana as a Schedule 3 substance is a significant step – but it’s far from the inevitable ultimate destination where marijuana is no longer treated as contraband in America’s failed war on drugs. Only the complete descheduling of marijuana will begin to dismantle the barriers of a nationwide criminal ban and ensure that no further damage is inflicted after decades of misguided federal policies. As we navigate this pivotal moment, our actions must be bold and unequivocal to ensure justice and equity for all those who have suffered under the weight of prohibition. If our ultimate goals are to liberate and restore American communities, now is not the time to settle for half measures or, worse yet, to declare victory and pretend like everything’s been solved. It hasn’t.”
Background:
38 states have laws that allow for medical cannabis use and 24 states have laws that allow for adult recreational cannabis use. Despite these reforms at the state level – as long as marijuana is a scheduled substance under the CSA, the repercussions of federal marijuana criminalization will continue – even for conduct that is authorized under state law. Individuals could still face criminal penalties, including mandatory minimum sentences, for personal use and distribution. Additionally, under a Schedule III classification, people with marijuana-related convictions could still lose access to federal housing and food benefits, or even face deportation. According to the ACLU, over 80% of people sentenced for federal marijuana charges were Black or Latino. This is a clear indication that maintaining federal criminalization in any form will perpetuate racially discriminatory policing and enforcement.
The Drug Policy Alliance is the nation's leading organization promoting drug policies grounded in science, compassion, health and human rights.
(212) 613-8020The new Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services administrator joins "a team of snake oil salesmen and anti-science flunkies that have already shown disdain for the American people and their health," said one critic.
Echoing a party-line vote by the U.S. Senate Finance Committee last week, the chamber's Republicans on Thursday confirmed President Donald Trump's nominee to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, former televison host Dr. Mehmet Oz.
Since Trump nominated Oz—who previously ran as a Republican for a U.S. Senate seat in Pennsylvania—a wide range of critics have argued that the celebrity cardiothoracic surgeon "is profoundly unqualified to lead any part of our healthcare system, let alone an agency as important as CMS," in the words of Robert Weissman, co-president of the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen.
After Thursday's 53-45 vote to confirm Oz, Weissman declared that "Republicans in the Senate continued to just be a rubber stamp for a dangerous agenda that threatens to turn back the clock on healthcare in America."
Weissman warned that "in addition to having significant conflicts of interest, Oz is now poised to help enact the Trump administration's dangerous agenda, which seeks to strip crucial healthcare services through Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act from hundreds of millions of Americans and to use that money to give tax breaks to billionaires."
"As he showed in his confirmation hearing, Oz will also seek to further privatize Medicare, increasing the risk that seniors will receive inferior care and further threatening the long-term health of the Medicare program. We already know that privatized Medicare costs taxpayers nearly $100 billion annually in excess costs," he continued, referring to Medicare Advantage plans.
CMS is part of the Department of Health and Human Services, now led by Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—who, like Oz, came under fire for his record of dubious claims during the confirmation process. Weissman said that "Dr. Oz is joining a team of snake oil salesmen and anti-science flunkies that have already shown disdain for the American people and their health. This is yet another dark day for healthcare in America under Trump."
In the middle of Trump's tariff disaster, the Senate is voting to confirm quack grifter Dr. Oz to lead the Centers for Medicaid & Medicare Services.
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— Jen Bendery (@jbendery.bsky.social) April 3, 2025 at 12:29 PM
Oz's confirmation came a day after Trump announced globally disruptive tariffs and Senate Republicans unveiled a budget plan that would give the wealthy trillions of dollars in tax cuts at the expense of federal food assistance and healthcare programs.
"While Dr. Oz would rather play coy, this is no hypothetical. Harmful cuts to Medicaid or Medicare are unavoidable in the Trump-Republican budget plan that prioritizes another giant tax break for the president's billionaire and corporate donors," Tony Carrk, executive director of the watchdog group Accountable.US, said ahead of the vote.
"None of Dr. Oz's 'miracle' cures that he's peddled over the years will help seniors when their fundamental health security is ripped away to make the rich richer," Carrk continued. "And while privatizing Medicare may enrich Dr. Oz's family and big insurance friends, it will cost taxpayers far more and leave millions of patients vulnerable to denials of care and higher out-of-pocket costs."
Lee Saunders, president of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), was similarly critical, saying after the vote that "at a time when our population is growing older and the need for access to home care, nursing homes, affordable prescription drugs, and quality medical care has never been greater, Americans deserve better than a snake oil salesman leading the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services."
"Dr. Mehmet Oz has been shilling pseudoscience to line his own pockets. He can't be trusted to defend Medicare and Medicaid from billionaires who want to dismantle and privatize the foundation of affordable healthcare in this country," the union leader added. "AFSCME members—including nurses, home care and childcare providers, social workers and more—will be watching and fighting back against any effort to weaken Medicare and Medicaid. The 147 million seniors, children, Americans with disabilities, and low-income workers who rely on these programs for affordable access to healthcare deserve nothing less."
"While your kids are getting ready for school, kids in Gaza were once against just massacred in one," said one observer.
Israeli airstrikes targeted at least three more school shelters in the Gaza Strip on Thursday, killing dozens of Palestinians and wounding scores of others on a day when local officials said that more than 100 people were slain by occupation forces.
Gaza's Government Media Office said that at least 29 people—including 14 children and five women—were killed and over 100 others were wounded when at least four missiles struck the Dar al-Arqam school complex in the Tuffah neighborhood of eastern Gaza City, where hundreds of Palestinians were sheltering after being forcibly displaced from other parts of the embattled coastal enclave by Israel's 535-day assault.
Al Jazeera reported that "when terrified men, women, and children fled from one school building to another, the bombs followed them," and "when bystanders rushed to help, they too became victims."
Warning: Video contains graphic images of death.
A first responder from the Palestine Red Crescent Society—which is reeling from this week's discovery of a mass grave containing the bodies of eight of its members, some of whom had allegedly been bound and executed by Israel Defense Forces (IDF) troops—toldAl Jazeera that "we were absolutely shocked by the scale of this massacre," whose victims were "mostly women and children."
An official from Gaza's Civil Defense, five of whose members were also found in the mass grave on Sunday, said: "What's going on here is a wake-up call to the entire world. This war and these massacres against women and children must stop immediately. The children are being killed in cold blood here in Gaza. Our teams cannot perform their duties properly.
Gaza Health Ministry spokesperson Zaher al-Wahidi said that the death toll was likely to rise, as some survivors were critically injured.
Dozens of victims were reportedly trapped beneath rubble of Thursday's airstrikes, but they could not cbe rescued due to a lack of equipment.
The IDF claimed that "key Hamas terrorists" were targeted in a strike on what it called a "command center." Israeli officials routinely claim—often with little or no evidence—that Palestinian civilians it kills are members of Hamas or other militant resistance groups.
Israel also bombed the nearby al-Sabah school, killing four people, as well as the Fahd School in Gaza City, with three reported fatalities.
Some of the deadliest bombings in the war have been carried out against refugees sheltering in schools, many of them run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA)—at least 280 of whose staff members have been killed by Israeli forces during the war.
The United Nations Children's Fund has called Gaza "the world's most dangerous place to be a child." Last year, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres for the first time added Israel to his so-called "List of Shame" of countries that kill and injure children during wars and other armed conflicts. More than 17,500 Palestinian children have been killed in Gaza since October 2023, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
Thursday's school bombings sparked worldwide outrage and calls to hold Israel accountable.
"While your kids are getting ready for school, kids in Gaza were once against just massacred in one," Australian journalist, activist, and progressive politician Sophie McNeill wrote on social media. "We must sanction Israel now!"
There were other IDF massacres on Thursday, with local officials reporting that more than 100 people were killed in Israeli attacks since dawn. Al-Wahidi said more than 30 people were killed in strikes on homes in Gaza City's Shejaya neighborhood, citing records at al-Ahli Arab Baptist Hospital in Gaza.
Al Jazeera reported that al-Ahli's emergency room "is overwhelmed with casualties and, as is so often the case over the past 18 months, the victims are Gaza's youngest."
Thursday's intensified airstrikes came as Israeli forces pushed into the ruins of the southern city of Rafah. Local and international media reported that hundreds of thousands of Palestinian families fled from the area, which Israel said it will seize as part of a new "security zone."
Human rights defenders around the world condemned U.S.-backed killing and mass displacement, with U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)—whose bid to block some sAmerican arms sales to Israel was rejected by the Senate on Thursday—saying: "There is a name and a term for forcibly expelling people from where they live. It is called ethnic cleansing. It is illegal. It is a war crime."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, his former defense minister, are fugitives from the International Criminal Court, which last year issued arrest warrants for the pair over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity. Israel is also facing a genocide case at the International Court of Justice.
According to Gaza officials, Israeli forces have killed or wounded at least 175,000 Palestinians in Gaza, including upward of 14,000 people who are missing and presumed dead and buried beneath rubble. Almost everyone in Gaza has been forcibly displaced at least once, and the "complete siege" imposed by Israel has fueled widespread and sometimes deadly starvation and disease.
"Working-class candidate v. billionaire political race. I'm here for it," wrote one longtime progressive strategist.
Dan Osborn, an Independent U.S. Senate candidate who struck a chord with working-class voters in Nebraska and came within striking distance of unseating his Republican opponent last year, announced Thursday that he's considering another run, this time challenging GOP Sen. Pete GOP Ricketts, who is up for election in 2026.
"We could replace a billionaire with a mechanic," Osborn wrote in a thread on X on Thursday. "I'll run against Pete Ricketts—if the support is there." Osborn said that he's launching an exploratory committee and would run as Independent, as he did in 2024.
Ricketts has served as a senator since 2023, and prior to that was the governor of Nebraska from 2015-2023. By one estimate, Ricketts has a net worth of over $165 million—though the wealth of his father, brokerage founder Joe Ricketts, and family is estimated to be worth $4.1 billion, according to Forbes.
A mechanic and unionist who helped lead a strike against Kellogg's cereal company, Osborn lost to Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.) by less than 7 points in November 2024 in what became an unexpectedly close race.
Although he didn't win, he overperformed the national Democratic ticket by a higher percentage than other candidates running against Republicans in competitive Senate races, according to The Nation.
"Billionaires have bought up the country and are carving it up day by day," said Osborn Thursday. "The economy they've built is good for them, bad for us. Good for huge multinationals and multibillionaires. Bad for workers. Bad for small businesses, bad for family farmers. Bad for anyone who wants Social Security to survive. Bad for your PAYCHECK."
Osborn cast the potential race as between "someone who's spent his life working for a living and will never take an order from a corporation or a party boss" and "someone who's never worked a day in his life and is entirely beholden to corporations and party."
"We could take on this illness, the billionaire class, directly," he said.
Osborn, who campaigned on issues like Right to Repair and lowering taxes on overtime payments, earned praise from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who toldThe Nation in late November that Osborn's bid should be viewed as a "model for the future."
Osborn "took on both political parties. He took on the corporate world. He ran as a strong trade unionist. Without party support, getting heavily outspent, he got through to working-class people all over Nebraska. It was an extraordinary campaign," Sanders said.
In reaction to the news that Osborn is exploring a second run, a former Sanders campaign manager and longtime progressive Democratic strategist Faiz Shakir, wrote: "working-class candidate v. billionaire political race. I'm here for it."