The US justice division has formally moved to reclassify hashish as a much less harmful substance – the nation’s greatest drug reform in over 50 years.
President Joe Biden hailed the step as “an essential transfer towards reversing longstanding inequities”.
It is a turnaround for a politician who three a long time in the past crafted a tricky crime invoice that is now politically divisive.
Nevertheless it might assist Mr Biden, a Democrat, shore up wavering assist amongst youthful voters in an election 12 months.
Thursday’s plan doesn’t legalise marijuana outright for leisure use as is at the moment the legislation in 24 US states and the District of Columbia. Thirty-eight US states have additionally legalised marijuana for medicinal functions.
“Far too many lives have been upended due to our failed method to marijuana,” Mr Biden mentioned on Thursday on X, previously Twitter, in a departure from his ordinary reticence on hashish coverage.
“I am dedicated to righting these historic wrongs. You will have my phrase.”
The administration’s proposal would shift pot from a Schedule I managed substance, its most restrictive class, to Schedule III.
The federal authorities would now not view the drug alongside different harmful and habit-forming substances like ecstasy, heroin and LSD.
Medicine within the Schedule III class are seen as having a low or average danger of abuse. They embody anabolic steroids, ketamine and testosterone.
