On October 6, 2022, President Biden took his first steps
to overhaul federal policy on marijuana. In doing so, he pardoned
individuals with federal offenses for simple marijuana possession
and initiated review as to how the drug is classified.
In his announcement, the President stated that
thousands of people with prior federal convictions could be denied
housing, education, or employment. His statement is technically
true – there are about 6,500 individuals who have been
convicted of federal offenses for simple marijuana possession since
1992. The bigger issue is state convictions, as marijuana offenses
overwhelmingly occur at the state level. For example, in 2018
– when 33 states had already legalized medical marijuana and
10 states, plus Washington D.C., had legalized adult-use –
the ACLU reports that there were nearly 700,000 marijuana arrests
in the United States, "the vast majority of which (89.6%) were
for possession."1 While tens of thousands of
individuals
