A coalition of six U.S. senators are renewing their call for the Biden administration to deschedule cannabis and grant mass pardons for people with federal cannabis convictions, calling the Justice Department’s response to an earlier request for action “extraordinarily disappointing.”
In a letter that was sent to President Joe Biden, Attorney General Merrick Garland, and Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra on Wednesday, the senators made a dual request: first, that the attorney general work independently to remove cannabis from the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) and second, that the president issue mass clemency for people with non-violent federal cannabis convictions.
Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Ed Markey (D-MA), and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) signed the new letter.
The senators said that DOJ took six months to respond to a previous October 2021 letter urging the attorney general to use his authority to unilaterally start the process of federally descheduling cannabis. The “half-page response” was “extraordinarily disappointing,” they wrote.
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