Biden's Marijuana Pardons Were Just for Show
Remember when President Biden made a big show of pardoning thousands of people with federal marijuana convictions? Remember the press conferences, the speeches about how "nobody should be in jail for simple possession," and the promises of reform? Yeah, about that.
Turns out it was all theater. And recently revealed documents prove it.
A newly uncovered Biden administration memo shows that while Biden was publicly pardoning people and talking about marijuana reform, his Department of Justice was quietly implementing policies that would make it harder to actually stop prosecuting marijuana cases. The memo required federal prosecutors to seek higher-up approval before declining to pursue marijuana charges—effectively ensuring that marijuana prosecutions would continue despite the public pardons.
Then Trump took office and rescinded even these minimal restrictions, making it clear that the federal war on marijuana is back on with a vengeance. But here's the thing: Biden's memo was never real reform to begin with. It was designed to look like progress while maintaining the status quo.
Let's break down this betrayal and why the entire federal approach to marijuana is an expensive, hypocritical waste of everyone's time.
What Biden Said He Was Doing
In October 2022, President Biden issued a proclamation pardoning all prior federal offenses of simple marijuana possession. He also called on governors to issue similar pardons for state offenses and directed the Department of Health and Human Services and the Attorney General to review marijuana's classification under federal law.
The announcement was accompanied by soaring rhetoric about justice and reform: "Sending people to jail for possessing marijuana has upended too many lives and incarcerated people for conduct that many states no longer prohibit," Biden said. "Criminal records for marijuana possession have also imposed needless barriers to employment, housing, and educational opportunities."
It sounded transformative. Media outlets ran headlines about Biden's "historic" marijuana pardons. Advocates cautiously celebrated what seemed like a step in the right direction.
But as with most things in politics, the devil was in the details. And those details reveal that Biden's pardons were far less significant than they appeared.
What Biden Actually Did (And Didn't Do)
First, let's talk about who actually benefited from Biden's pardons. The answer? Almost nobody who was actually in prison.
Biden's pardons only applied to federal simple possession charges. Here's the problem: virtually nobody is in federal prison for simple possession of marijuana. Federal marijuana prosecutions typically involve trafficking, cultivation, or possession with intent to distribute—all of which were explicitly excluded from the pardons.
According to the U.S. Sentencing Commission, there were zero people in federal prison serving sentences solely for simple marijuana possession at the time of Biden's announcement. Zero. The pardons affected roughly 6,500 people, but they had already served their sentences. The pardons cleared their records, which is meaningful, but it's not remotely the same as freeing people from prison.
So Biden got credit for "freeing thousands" when he actually freed no one. That's the first con.
The Memo That Revealed the Truth
Now we get to the recently revealed part that shows just how cynical Biden's "reform" really was.
While Biden was publicly pardoning past marijuana offenses and talking about reform, his Department of Justice issued a memo in January 2023 requiring federal prosecutors to seek approval from higher-ups before declining to pursue marijuana charges. Let that sink in for a moment.
The administration that was supposedly reforming marijuana policy implemented a system designed to ensure marijuana prosecutions would continue. The memo essentially said: "If you're thinking about not prosecuting a marijuana case, you need permission from your bosses first."
This is the opposite of reform. This is institutionalizing the status quo while pretending to support change.
The memo also directed prosecutors to continue enforcing federal marijuana laws "particularly with respect to large-scale commercial enterprises," which sounds reasonable until you realize that many state-legal marijuana businesses could fall under that category. The federal government was maintaining its authority to go after legal cannabis businesses while Biden was getting credit for being pro-reform.
What Biden's Agencies Were Instructed to Do
While Biden talked about reform, here's what his agencies were actually doing:
The Department of Justice: As we've discussed, required approval before declining marijuana prosecutions. Continued to enforce federal prohibition. Maintained marijuana's Schedule I status throughout Biden's entire term despite his supposed directive to review it.
The Drug Enforcement Administration: Continued raids on state-legal marijuana businesses. Maintained barriers to marijuana research. Dragged its feet on rescheduling, ultimately proposing the half-measure of Schedule III instead of descheduling entirely.
The Department of Health and Human Services: Recommended Schedule III status—a move that would primarily benefit pharmaceutical companies while maintaining federal prohibition for everyone else.
The FDA: Continued to treat marijuana as an illegal substance with no accepted medical use, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary and 38 states with medical marijuana programs.
In other words, business as usual. The agencies tasked with implementing Biden's supposed marijuana reforms spent four years maintaining prohibition, just with better PR.
Trump Rescinds Even the Minimal Restrictions
Then Trump took office and even Biden's performative restrictions got tossed. The Justice Department under Trump rescinded the memo requiring higher-up approval for declining marijuana prosecutions. But here's the twist: this doesn't actually change much because the memo was never about reducing prosecutions—it was about maintaining them while appearing progressive.
What Trump's action does signal is that federal marijuana enforcement is back without any pretense of restraint. Federal prosecutors in Trump's DOJ have already announced plans to ramp up marijuana prosecutions, particularly on federal lands. The Attorney General has made it clear that marijuana is viewed as a "hazard," and they're going after simple possession cases with renewed vigor.
So we've gone from Biden's fake reform to Trump's open hostility. Neither approach serves justice, public health, or common sense. Both waste massive amounts of resources prosecuting people for consuming a plant that's legal in 24 states and medically legal in 38.
Why This Is All Bullshit
Let's step back and acknowledge the absurdity of this entire situation.
We're spending federal resources—taxpayer money—prosecuting people for marijuana possession. Not trafficking. Not distribution to minors. Possession. Having a plant in your pocket.
Meanwhile, alcohol—which is far more dangerous than marijuana by every objective measure—is legal, marketed, and sold on every corner. Let's compare:
Deaths: Alcohol kills approximately 140,000 Americans annually. Marijuana kills zero people per year from overdose. Zero.
Addiction: About 15% of alcohol users develop alcohol use disorder. Less than 9% of marijuana users develop any form of dependence, and that dependence is far less severe.
Violence: Alcohol is involved in roughly 40% of violent crimes. Marijuana is associated with decreased aggression and violence.
Health Impact: Alcohol causes liver disease, heart disease, cancer, brain damage, and numerous other conditions. Marijuana's health impacts are comparatively minimal, with most research showing benefits for conditions like chronic pain, PTSD, and epilepsy.
Social Cost: Alcohol-related harm costs the U.S. economy an estimated $249 billion annually. Marijuana's social costs are a fraction of that and continue to decrease in legal states.
So explain to me again why we're criminalizing marijuana while alcohol flows freely? The only logical explanation is that our drug policies have nothing to do with actual harm reduction and everything to do with control, corporate interests, and maintaining prohibition machinery.
The Hypocrisy of "Consenting Adults"
Here's what really grinds my gears: we're supposedly a free country. We allegedly believe in individual liberty and personal autonomy. We're told constantly that America is the land of the free, where adults can make their own choices.
But apparently, that freedom doesn't extend to what you put in your own body. You can drink yourself to death—that's your right. You can smoke cigarettes knowing they'll likely kill you—personal choice. You can eat yourself into obesity and diabetes—freedom, baby.
But smoke marijuana? That's where we draw the line. That requires federal intervention, criminal penalties, and lifelong records that destroy employment prospects and ruin lives.
The inconsistency is maddening. Either we believe in bodily autonomy for consenting adults or we don't. Either we respect people's right to make their own choices about substances or we don't. You can't claim to be the land of the free while arresting people for consuming a plant that's objectively safer than legal alternatives.
The Waste of Resources
Let's talk about what this prohibition actually costs us.
Federal marijuana enforcement costs billions of dollars annually. That's billions that could be spent on education, healthcare, infrastructure, or literally anything that actually benefits society. Instead, we're spending it on arresting, prosecuting, and incarcerating people whose only crime is possessing a plant.
Federal prosecutors have limited resources. Every hour spent prosecuting marijuana possession is an hour not spent on violent crime, white-collar fraud, human trafficking, or other serious offenses. Every prison cell occupied by a marijuana offender is a cell not available for an actual dangerous criminal.
The opportunity cost is staggering. And for what? To maintain a prohibition that the majority of Americans oppose and that has demonstrably failed to reduce marijuana use, availability, or harm?
The Real Agenda
So why do Biden and Trump both maintain this charade? Why the performance of reform from one and the outright hostility from the other, when both result in continued prohibition?
Follow the money. The pharmaceutical industry loses billions when people choose marijuana over their pills. Private prisons profit from marijuana arrests. Law enforcement agencies get federal funding tied to drug war enforcement. Politicians get campaign contributions from all of the above.
Marijuana prohibition is a jobs program for law enforcement, a profit center for prisons, and a market protection scheme for pharmaceutical companies. That's why it persists despite overwhelming public support for legalization and despite marijuana being objectively safer than legal alternatives.
Biden's pardons were never about justice—they were about appearing progressive while maintaining the profitable status quo. Trump's crackdown isn't about public safety—it's about signaling toughness to his base while serving the same corporate interests.
The Sticky Bottom Line
Biden's marijuana pardons were political theater designed to earn progressive credibility without actually changing anything. He pardoned people who were already out of prison while his DOJ implemented policies to ensure prosecutions continued. He talked about reform while his agencies maintained prohibition.
Trump's rescinding of even those minimal restrictions just makes the hypocrisy more obvious. At least Trump isn't pretending to be progressive on this issue—he's openly hostile to marijuana reform, and his administration is ramping up prosecutions accordingly.
But here's the thing: both approaches are fundamentally wrong. Whether it's Biden's fake reform or Trump's open hostility, the result is the same—continued criminalization of a substance that's safer than alcohol, imprisonment of people whose only crime is personal use of a plant, and massive waste of federal resources on failed prohibition.
We're consenting adults allegedly living in a free country. We can choose to drink alcohol despite its dangers. We can choose countless other legal substances that carry risks. But somehow, marijuana remains criminalized, prosecuted, and stigmatized.
The pardons were a show. The memo was a betrayal. The rescinding was expected. And the entire federal approach to marijuana remains a hypocritical, expensive, unjust waste of everyone's time.
Until we have actual legalization—not rescheduling, not half-measures, not performative pardons—nothing will change. The machine will keep grinding, the arrests will continue, and politicians from both parties will keep pretending they care about reform while maintaining prohibition.
That's the real story Biden's pardons tell: in America, even progress is mostly for show.
BIDEN PARDONS CANNABIS? READ ON...
