Weednesday April 21, 2021
In today's report:
Biden Press Secretary Misstates Marijuana Rescheduling’s Impact For Federal Prisoners Who Want Clemency
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said on Wednesday that President Joe Biden’s campaign pledge to release federal inmates with marijuana convictions will start with modestly rescheduling cannabis—a proposal that advocates say wouldn’t actually accomplish what she’s suggesting.
During a briefing, the official was pressed on marijuana clemency for the second day in a row. New York Post reporter Steven Nelson said Psaki’s previous response didn’t offer a “firm answer” as to whether Biden still intends to push for the release of those serving time over non-violent cannabis offenses and asked if the president will “honor his commitment to release everyone in prison for marijuana.”
“Well I think what I did yesterday is reiterate what his position on marijuana was— decriminalizing or rescheduling and certainly legalizing medical marijuana,” she said. “What you’re asking me is a legal question. Now we’re in government, and so I had to follow up with our legal team and I don’t have any additional information quite yet.”
The reporter pushed back, noting that moving cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule II under the Controlled Substances Act, as #biden is proposing, wouldn’t facilitate mass clemency given that being convicted for crimes related to drugs in that slightly lower category—which currently includes #cocaine—also carries significant penalties.
“It addresses things moving forward, though, which is important and important to many advocates,” Psaki argued.
But advocates don’t really see it that way. For one, they support descheduling marijuana entirely. But when it comes to the relationship between scheduling and sentencing, moving cannabis to Schedule II would in no way fulfill Biden’s 2019 campaign pledge, when he said, “I think everyone—anyone who has a record—should be let out of jail, their records expunged, be completely zeroed out” for marijuana convictions.
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CULTUREHow Politicians Are Celebrating The Marijuana Holiday 4/20 This Year
The country has come a long way since the days of politicians dismissing or shying away from marijuana issues. And a good example of that shift is the ever-growing number of lawmakers who are leaning into the cannabis holiday #420 , with calls for reform.
For example, to kick of Tuesday’s Senate #session, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) spoke on the floor about the need to end federal marijuana prohibition, saying that “hopefully the next time this unofficial holiday 4/20 rolls around, our country will have made progress.”
Then there are the tweets—so many tweets—from state and congressional lawmakers, office seekers and regulators marking the occasion. It’s become a theme each year, and as more states pursue legalization, it seems more elected officials have grown comfortable embracing the holiday in their own ways.
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U.S. fiber processor says it has raised $2.8 million
BastCore will use the money to advance its decortication and degumming technology, and add workers to meet “ovewhelming demand” for textiles and other hemp fiber markets, the company said in a press release.
“Our investors understand the vast economic potential that industrial hemp will have on multiple industries,” said BastCore CEO, Coleman Beale, a former banker with First US and USAmeriBank. “This investment gives us the necessary capital to considerably expand our production.”
Planned outputs
BastCore, which started in Nebraska in 2014, buys hemp stalks and processes them into fiber products using both the stringy bast fibers on the outside of the stalk as well as the hurd – the stem’s woody inner core. Planned outputs include different grades of bast fiber for textiles and composites; hurd for the construction industry; and “micronized core wood” (dust). The company is setting up operations in a 60,000-square-foot former steam plant on the outskirts of Montgomery that once powered America’s first municipal trolley system.
https://hemptoday.net/u-s-fiber-processor-says-it-has-raised-2-8-million/