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BIDEN TOUTS ‘SUCCESSES’ BEFORE SOTU, BUT FAILS TO DELIVER IN SPEECH

The White House touted its policies and accomplishments — including marijuana pardons, drug sentencing reform, harm reduction and enhanced enforcement for fentanyl — ahead of last week’s State of the Union speech, but then proceeded to say nothing in the speech itself about drug policy reform.

The White House promised in a factsheet that the president would “highlight progress” on criminal justice issues during the speech and included a section that directly discussed tackling the “failed approach to marijuana and crack cocaine.” But nothing was said during SOTU about it.

And little wonder. The Biden Administration’s record is one of ‘overpromise, underperform.’ Case in point? For all of the White House hand-wringing about the adverse effect on minorities of the statutory sentencing penalty for crack cocaine being much greater than powder cocaine, the EQUAL Act collapsed due to Senate wrangling at the end of the last Congress.

Marijuana reform? Is that what one calls grant pardons to people who aren’t in prison and have convictions for simple pot possession? Or is that one calls the MORE Act, which breezed past the House last session but died in the Senate because Biden couldn’t corral members of his own party who wanted to tinker with it?

President Biden – an old hand at Senate procedure himself – could not get two bills passed the Senate when both had overwhelming support.

Is this what success looks like?

The Fact Sheet says “the Safer America Plan calls on Congress to end once and for all the racially discriminatory sentencing disparity between crack cocaine and powder cocaine offenses — as President Biden first advocated in 2007 — and make that change fully retroactive. This step would provide immediate sentencing relief to the 10,000 individuals, more than 90 percent of whom are Black, currently serving time in federal prison pursuant to the crack/powder disparity. As an initial step, the Attorney General has issued guidance to federal prosecutors on steps they should take to promote the equivalent treatment of crack and powder cocaine offenses, but Congress still needs to act….”

And Biden needs to lead, not just posture.

Biden’s pardon proclamation, which affected several thousand people who’ve committed federal cannabis possession offenses but not a single one in prison, “lifts barriers to housing, employment, and educational opportunities,” the Fact Sheet boasted.

A White House official said Thursday that Biden promises that “every jail and prison across the nation can provide treatment for substance use disorder.” By this summer, he said, the BOP will ensure that each of its 122 facilities are equipped and trained to provide in-house medication-assisted treatment.”

White House, FACT SHEET: The Biden-⁠Harris Administration’s Work to Make Our Communities Safer and Advance Effective, Accountable Policing (February 6, 2023)

Marijuana Moment, White House Touts Biden’s Marijuana Pardons In Preview of State of The Union Speech (February 7, 2023)

WHIO-TV, Biden wants to make opioid antidote as widely available as ventilators, drug official says (February 9, 2023)

– Thomas L. Root