Recently the US Army clarified that a 2022 proclamation issuing thousands of marijuana pardons “does not cover military drug offenses”. Now, a US senator is calling this a “mistake”.
In the Army’s announcement they clarified that the pardons do “not result in a pardon for military personnel, nor does it apply to the civilian drug-testing program.” Now, Senator John Fetterman (D-PA), says “I would urge him to reconsider that. I don’t think it’s helpful”.
Fetterman, in the interview with Ask a Pol’s Matt Laslo, said “If you’re willing to serve our nation in the military, to be penalized by using a substance that is statistically much safer than other legal kinds of things—I don’t really understand the logic, truthfully.”
Fetterman continued by calling the move “a mistake”, saying “Weed is no different than alcohol. Well, the only difference is, is one’s legal and one isn’t. One can ruin your career and another one, you can walk into a store and buy it and drink as much of it as you can and then show up in [the] morning and that’s not going to endanger your career.”
Biden issued the marijuana pardons in late 2022. As part of the executive order Biden requested the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to conduct a review of marijuana’s schedule one status, which has led to them recommending to the DEA that marijuana be rescheduled to Schedule III, legalizing it nationwide for prescription use. The DEA is currently conducting a review on whether the agency should follow HHS’ recommendation.
