I Have Biden / Weed Questions 

Folks are misunderstanding that these pardons are meant to enable people to be eligible for SNAP benefits (food), FAFSA benefits (education), to lift hindrances for employment, housing, etc. Our system keeps people down even after they do their time, by inhibiting them from getting access to basic aid and jobs that will improve their lives. It's like being punished forever, for something you already served time for. That's what these pardons are meant to change. It's a huge deal, something that the DPA and such organizations have been pushing for a long time. And this administration has taken action on it, in a way no other administration has. We're taking steps. Good to see the whole picture here. Great video, Hank. I'm thrilled that this is a cause you feel strongly about 💚

I love the “Hank does research in front of us” genre of video. These should absolutely be taught in high school.

“i’ve done marijuana crimes” -hank green

I hope that "Hank googles things" continue to be series because it's both delightful and informative.

Criminal reeentry attorney here, great video. You are spot on, expungement is not a federally available remedy and using all of these terms interchangeably is incredibly confusing. Thanks for taking the time to break this down.

"I've done marijuana crimes... Not recently... Cause it's legal now" a 3 act play in 10 words.

The weed questions can wait, Hank. Please return the president.

_"This is the thing about Twitter fights: No one is talking about the same thing"_

Important context: a lot of the conversation around pardons is for non violent drug offenders, but we need to remember that even having a weapon legally in your possession turns any drug offense into a violent drug offense by default. Here, in the gun country.

I have 3 felonies for 3 ounces of weed first offense at Penn State, it made me lose all my scholarships and grants, and I did over a year in jail. This was in 2008. Weed stores opened at Penn State less than 5 years later.

I just want to say that the single greatest thing these videos can do is SHOW PEOPLE HOW TO ACTUALLY DO THEIR OWN RESEARCH!! You don't need to go to a library and start rifling through old records. You can do it online very easily, but you need to know HOW. Read multiple sources. Click on their citations. Look at the author, what else have they written/studied/worked on, to ballpark their expertise/credibility. Learn how to tweak the wording of your searches themselves to get better results. Honestly, one of my favorite things is to try different searches just to see how easy it is to flip the results in one direction or another for the same topic. Subtle things like "did Biden lie about X" versus "did Biden follow through on X" might bring you very different flavored search results. So it's good to check that you're not biasing the answers you find unintentionally.

This should be a series, I suggest "Decoding Conversations on The Bad App" as a name.

High schools should show this video as part of a required media literacy class

The biggest problem with the pardons was that he only pardoned people in federal prison that solely had possession charges and absolutely nothing else. The feds don’t go for simple possession, they slap everything they can with it and use the marijuana as an amplification for charges. So most people got possession with intent to distribute, which wasn’t pardoned. And if you got arrested with a firearm on your person with weed, you got a firearms felony charge with the weed and no pardon. Just look at Kyle from PKA and formerly FPS Russia. He got possession with intent and firearms charges, and he’s discussed this openly that he’ll never get his firearms rights back and always be a felon if this is as far as the Biden pardons go.

Please keep doing these, like this, even longer if necessary. Showing the actual steps to verifying a claim (even if they don't involve calling anyone) can really help show people how to properly fact check things - but more importantly, show them how utterly ridiculous it is to believe a statement of fact at face value.

"It seems like Twitter is bad." Yeah, that tracks.

I loves “times” as in “three times four”. The word “times” in multiplication is hard to wrap your head around like why multiplication has anything to do with time then this is the best way to do it: “3 times 4” means “I have 3 four times”. Like: one time, I had a pie. Three times, I had four pies. Three times, four pies. This has nothing to do with your video except I’m super high and really love the word “times”. Love you Hank bye

Here I go thinking more complexly again 🙄 I actually paused the video at 7:59 to read more of the article and internalize the information. (Damn it, Hank. This is a super effective format.)

"seems like twitter is bad" 100% agree, but this video also demonstrates that most journalism is sadly lacking as well. It really shouldn't be this hard to get a factual answer like that.

This video is incredible. Never thought I would see Hank Green talk about Cannabis, but then again it was in his name all along. I appreciate all your hard work, keep it up!

Hank: "It seems like Twitter is bad!" John: "WHAT HAVE I BEEN TELLING YOU!!!!"

Love Hank gently, kindly, empathetically showing the internet how to fact check.

What I love about this 'series' is that it's a practical demonstration of how to effectively research and fact check the things we see on the internet. We often have people say "Check your sources" and "Do your own research" but then not actually empower people with the tools and the frameworks to actually go out and do it. The fact that here we can watch someone well respected and seen as "smart" by the world at large go through the actual motions of this and struggle in places to find the information that they are looking for shows us all how we can also approach fact checking and research online. Looking forward to the next episode!

I was diagnosed with cancer last year around same time as you Hank. I'm a 5'9 male weighing 130lbs and cannabis helped to suppress my appetite and keep me from wasting away during chemo. Chemo therapy is apparently rough on the lungs, so I had to use other means of consumption. Oh, and I get the results of my latest CT scan tomorrow, fingers crossed...

I enjoy this series and hope it continues! As a librarian, I really appreciate Hank modeling good information literacy skills here, demonstrating how research is iterative. Keep it up!

While in a Arizona jail for trespassing awaiting my sentencing I met a 19 year old who was doing 8 months for sitting on a park bench not realizing there was a bag of stems and a old pipe under the bench. 2002.

"Fuckin SHEETS" ++++

I honestly love this format so much. A youtuber that I loved but is no longer active used to do these sort of "let's google things and see where it takes us and what we can learn" vids from time to time and I've missed them dearly so I really hope that this format sticks around

Thank you...Bidenweed is the name of my new band now.

You just hit the top of my dream sesh list, Hank

I know this is a huge bummer, but I just want to point out that my mom basically was in and out of jail my entire childhood for weed possession (for her pain). I have CPTSD from the 'abandonment' this regularly caused. I was abandoned by my mom by the cops by proxy on a regular basis. As a Texan, the only hope I have is that some dumb maverick will figure out we could make hella tax money if we legalized weed. We might still be one of the earlier adopters but for now... this prohibition has done enough damage to me and my family and watching my party handwave while doing very little makes me pretty angry.

When a president says something like, "records should be expunged", and the president has no power to do such a thing, it's a message to people who do have that power, or are looking to get elected into positions that have that power. How voters respond to such things can tell them if it's an issue they should run on. It also tells people in power that they won't receive push back from the administration.

The rescheduling is absolutely the most important piece. Marijuana being schedule 1 is what prevents it from being officially legally used as a medical treatment. If it was schedule 3, that opens the possibility of medical cannabis actually being available via prescription (vs medical marijuana cards which are in a legal grey area) and covered by health insurance. Right now even if you have a medical need for cannabis and you have the card (which you pay for our of pocket) you have to go to a dispensary with your actual money and buy it out of pocket. If your reason for using cannnabis is for pain control or as an anti nausea treatment your insurance should cover it the same way it covers tramadol or zofran.

Yep, this is going in my Hank Green talking about weed playlist

No drug should be illegal. In fact, we desperately need real drug education in this country. I'm talking types, dosages, receptor sites, agonist, antagonists, metabolic pathways. Drugs don't kill people, ignorance kills people. I've felt like a criminal since I was 18, just because I took an interest in psychedelic drugs after I did a a research paper for high school. Now I live in Colorado and I'm no longer a criminal, but after being labeled a criminal, and being in danger of going to jail for something so inconsequential... I've never really felt like a part of society. A lot of pent up anger about that. Frustration. What kind of society hunts down and captures it's own citizen? Who did I hurt?

I love the chaotic energy of the editing of this video tbh. I know a lotta folks don't focus on editing but I appreciate it damnit!

Hey Hank! A tip for researching here on youtube. When you were trying to find a specific part of Biden's state of the union, you can click on the video and open the description, there you'll find a button labeled Show transcript. From there you can just ctrl+f whatever you're looking for in a video and it'll be timestamped for you in the transcript. Hope this helps for your next rabbit hole!

The fact that there will be no Awesome Weed Club makes me sad…

I love this video as a symbol - this so what it means to be an informed citizen/voter. Going past the headlines/tweets and investigating the actual policy and the actual repercussions. Thank you for your content, Hank

I am a public services librarian and I LOVE this. This is how you research. I think that you could totally make a video of how to know when something is fake news. Thank you for spreading your awesome knowledge.

Make it a series, let's go!

You have your Media Literacy Crash Course, but this is like "Applied Media Literacy" and I love it. It's also topical... And you could bring attention to different issues... Pease do more.

Rescheduling, and eventually descheduling, is going to have the biggest long-term effect. And I've noticed Biden does a lot of stuff like that in a much more low-key way. Like, he's been doing loan forgiveness in waves and it's barely been getting noticed. It's strategic - his biggest attempt to deal with student loans got blocked. So he has to backdoor everything, and he's good at it, but it doesn't get good headlines.

Would love for my mother's felony record to be expunged. She spent my entire childhood/early adulthood in prison in CA because she grew a few plants in her yard for personal use, back in the early to mid 80s. The "war on drugs" hurt way more families than it saved. We are still getting to know each other, and it hurts to see her still struggle to find a palce to live, job, etc just because she is considered a felon...meanwhile, she can walk into any dispensary and legally purchase it. Ugh.

I think the other thing to think about is that often federal law enforcement and Attorneys don't just bring 1 charge unless it's a really serious charge. So pardoning any 1 THING is not likely to free a lot of people because there will always be other charges that they will still be in jail for. I think to have more of an impact you would need some sort of large review looked at individuals and pardoned them. But that would probably be VERY unpopular and just imagine if one of them were re-incarcerated for a violent crime. People would lose their minds.

Little bit of nuance re: the pardonings, maybe technically no one was released from prison, but I have to imagine anyone who was on parole got released from the parole system, which-clearly parole is not the same as being in prison, but it's also definitely not the same as being a free citizen, like, parole can be very difficult.

Loved this, need more videos going down the rabbit hole fact checking discourse people see in passing on twitter. The hyperfixation you had for finding answers was very satisfying to watch, please do it more

Hank! Most people that went to jail for possession also had other minor crimes and then the possession part is taken off so that the "more serious" crime is put to focus. I was once accosted by the police for smoking not possession but the actual charge they gave me was trespassing (I was in the hallway of a building I lived in). So when it came to papers work, no one cared about the possession. It was an excuse. If they arrest you and you have both cannabis and maybe also some spare money, you are now absolutely guilty of possession with intent to sell. So in both these cases, the cannabis was used as a pretext for other forms of harassment and justifications. @HankGreen do you see why some people would be in jail (or prison) but it's *not* because of Cannabis?

My favorite part of this video wasnt even the results or the questions you were asking but seeing your process to research and answer your own question.

Can we just take a moment to appreciate how cleverly Hank went into the socks ad? Also, Biden "recommended" that marijuana be reclassified. Apparently, it's not within his power to simply order it to be reclassified. This is actually a good thing, that the president has limits on his powers, and cannot unilaterally do anything he wants. Too many people *want* the president to be able to do anything he wants when he's doing something they like, but not when he's doing something they don't like. So I hope people remember that if Trump wins the election. Trump can say anything, but that doesn't mean he has, or had (when he was previously in office), the power to do anything he wants.

i have a principle, a hard and fast rule i apply on the internet, and I swear it saves me from a lot of missinformation. it is this: "information presented in an image format is unusable" That is, if you see someone posting a PICTURE that in any way show information, or is used to make a point, it is not to be considered valid. that gets rid of all screenshots of news headlines, missunderstood graphs, a quote from Jane Goodall and pictures of people in situations doing things that have been deprived of context. Now, unusable information does not mean it is untrue, it does not mean it is true either, it means that this can not be used to inform you. it is not allowed a place in your brain. Unusable information is broken, like a device is borken, it can not fulfill a its purpose any more. Yes, this rule is not perfect, Yes, it sometimes filters out true things, but it is simple, aplicable, and does more right than wrong.

I love that you’re doing arguably the exact opposite of smoking weed here: data entry into a spreadsheet

The people who were pardoned were probably no longer in jail because they had completed their sentences, not that they were on parole, however, they were still felons with all that carries. Now they will no longer be felons, even though there is still a court record of their convictions. This restores civil rights to the individuals (firearms possession, certain federal benefits, etc).

I went down this exact same research rabbit hole a few months ago (minus the spreadsheet) so it feels reassuring to know I took a similar approach to Hank. This is an excellent format; I'd love a recurring "come fact check with me" video.

Look at the pardon website again. It's not automatic; you have to apply for it individually. If you scroll down to the FAQ portion of the same page it says they've issued 184 pardons so far.

I was at a comedy show last night and they were handing out a free drink ticket to the person in the audience with the best socks, no joke. Shouldn't come as a surprise but a pair of Awesome Socks won

The research in real-time was awesome.

I grew up in the eighties, was rather sheltered, and the satanic panic and drug wars had a heavy affect on me. Then I tried weed. Everything changed. One lie busted; time to question everything.

I actually really like this method of breaking down online discourse, its pretty easy to follow along as you read articles.

Biden can only pardon (restore rights lost due to criminal conviction and end penal term) or commute (shorten penal term) and he can only do so for federal crimes. He did pardon thousands of people who had federal convictions for simple cannabis possession (these are people who got caught smoking weed in national parks and stuff like that). However, none of them were serving prison sentences because the federal government doesn't send you to prison for that. Most cannabis crimes are state crimes and Biden can't pardon state crimes, but he did publicly encourage governors to issue pardons similar to his. He did commute the sentences of nearly a dozen people serving disproportionately long sentences for non-violent cannabis crimes, usually trafficking and distribution, but none of those commutations shortened the sentence to nothing, so no one was released. He cannot expunge records because expungement is a judicial action. Those with pardons would have to petition the federal court they were sentenced in to get their records expunged. He cannot unilaterally legalize, reschedule, or deschedule cannabis. There are only two paths to change cannabis' legal status and both are outlined in the Controlled Substances Act (CSA): either Congress can pass a law amending or repealing the CSA or the president can invoke an executive rulemaking process that requires reports and recommendations from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), with the DEA holding final say on the matter. Biden initiated that rulemaking process ~18 months ago. HHS has completed their report and recommended rescheduling and the DEA is currently conducting their review. So, Biden has done basically all he can with the exception of fully commuting all sentences for federal non-violent cannabis offenses, like trafficking. We're currently stuck waiting for the DEA to complete their review and nothing else can be done until then. If the DEA refuses to reschedule, then we'd need Congress to amend the CSA, which would mean voters would have to show up en masse on midterms to vote in enough pro-cannabis Dems to pass such an amendment in both chambers for a pro-cannabis Dem president, like Biden, to sign into law. Also, while the DEA is technically part of the executive branch, it is the most independent executive agency in existence. Only two DEA positions (director and assistant director) are appointed by the president and neither have unilateral authority to finalize the scheduling review, so Biden can't just pull a Nixon and fire DEA administrators until he gets one who will reschedule.

Its pretty obvious at this point, that most of the time people on social media like to narrow their points to seem correct by removing context or at least warping it. Thanks Hank, for looking into it and filling out that context everyone conveniently misses or is too lazy to discover themselves. But that also might be by the nature of short form content and sensationalism for the sweet dopamine of confirmation bias

WHOA! Dropping the F bomb. Hank isn't playing anymore!

I have really enjoyed seeing old photos of you Hank, you even got me to sign up for the newsletter in the hope you would put up more lol, you better watch, they seem so popular that people will be subscribing twice or more!

It's also worth saying that it isn't true that the President has "no power" over State law. He has a huge platform, he has all kinds of levers. If he wanted to push states to pardon people in state prison, there's a lot more he could be doing.

i love how you and john both have been really demonstrating research and critical analysis and clarifying definitions of terms and like... how to engage with the media. it's a really good thing to demonstrate in this methodical way with the platform you have. i really appreciate it

I think a lost bit of context is that the DEA has considered rescheduling marijuana in the past and then chose to keep it Schedule I. There is no reason to suspect that the HHS recommendation posed under Biden's administration will carry more weight, and because of the lengthy red-tape-addled process the DEA uses to reschedule a drug, there would be no movement on this until after the election. The timing of events, in my mind, make this a very symbolic gesture. Although in reality like with most things, the President mostly only has symbolic power over any of this. Legislation would be needed to declassify it altogether, and somehow despite bipartisan support by the voting masses, it's currently politically infeasible. This really speaks to a larger issue with American politics. Even when a majority of people on both sides of the political spectrum want a thing, it's electoral suicide to support that same thing. How is that? Hint, gerrymandering.

I'd sign up to get Awesome Weed Club every month. We smokin that Johnny Tuberculosis Pack, its a sativa that'll make you wanna get up and prevent a preventable disease! We smokin that Complexly OG. That Hank Dank. That Crash Course Cannibis.

Rescheduling would also allow for a bunch of new research to take place cause schedule 1 drugs have massive limitations.

I love these kinds of videos and would be so excited to see more of them. It's actually a teachable moment as to how to fact check things effectively!

This is the best title I’ve seen pop up in my feed

Man, I love your presentation of this fact checking!

A thing I will continue to struggle with. How many people are in prison, either state or federal, who went to jail for marijuana and additional crimes, who wouldn't have had the altercation if marijuana was legal. If the cops entered into a home soley 'for marijuana' and then they found other additional things or something else occurred. They aren't going to be pardoned but I think they should. If a cop pulls me over for a reason that is later deemed incorrect, what happens next can be thrown out of court. Why is it we only save the 'safe' drug users.

Hank's ability to make this complicated topic interesting to follow and entertaining, this should totally be a series. His googling path seems very similar to what an internet savvy person would take but with the appropriate amount of effort that I would think the majority of us don't put into most topics. The goodwill that he has with the internet also helps with knowing he'd be sincere and try to avoid bias All in all, this is an alternative deep dive series I look forward to seeing more of

I'm obsessed with this series and I hope the algorithm spreads your good deeds of media literacy far and wide.

Unfortunately, a lot of times, charges for marijuana possession were not the only thing someone was charged or jailed for. And given the inertia of the legal system, having to review each case to see if that would reduce or eliminate any sentencing will take time. And if there were other charges, they could be, "Well, this part isn't there anymore, but this/these thing(s) you are still being punished for so..." And then if the classification is changed Federally, then State and local laws, charges, and incarcerations would have to be reviewed, etc. Which could languish if the State administrations are the sort to drag their heels instead of being proactive or at least timely about it.

This is such a useful video. There is so much misleading or outright false information on the internet, I think a lot of people have the tendency to give up and think “I just can’t tell what’s true anymore.” They wouldn’t even know how to approach researching it. It’s so important to have examples like this of people doing the work to figure out if something is true or false-especially for topics they don’t have a lot of knowledge about going in.

My thought is that if alcohol is legal although it can make for crazy behavior, pot should get the green light. Munchies never hurt anybody. I don't care for pot. It doesn't care for. But for those who like it enjoy.

I was actually charged with "Attempted paraphenalia," which I believe is even more embarassing than "attempted possession."

I love this concept and I do hope you make it a series. Not only is it educational, it teaches others how to think through these issues on their own and fact check for themselves.

So I used to be involved in... the circulation of a few substance, including cannabis. First, this was in the late 90's and early 00's, and second it was at the interstate level, not ground level. What o want to put out there though it's that while cannabis use doesn't usually come with any violence, there is *extreme* violence involved with it's trade in the black market. It's just a fact. Cartels, gang lords, human trafficking, war. So while cannabis is *nearly* harmless, it's illicit trade comes with a lot of harm, both human and ecological. Buy from your dispensaries if you have them, because otherwise You're ultimately funding a m*rder machine.

I can confirm as a non-American who has never lived there that the energy Biden exudes in his tweets is of someone who has no idea he is the President. Whenever I see that screenshot of that tweet I laugh, it’s too true.

I enjoy the detailed research in real time. Make it a series?....make it a series!

This format is hilarious, engaging, and very informative. Keep it up, damn, Hank!

I joyously exclaimed when you made the distinction that LSD and Heroin should not be in the same category. Seriously, thank you. People n e e d to be more educated about psychedelics. It’s a shame too that psilocybin is taking a similar route weed was about 10 years ago but good old acid still gets all the hate it has been getting since 1966.

No one was in jail *just* for simple possession. There were always other crimes tacked on because cops are cops. So while one crime was pardoned, they still have to serve the sentence for any other crimes they were convicted of. That's why it was symbolic

Hank looks pretty passionate about this

Yay, thanks for another one of these research videos Hank!! I would love to see more of these, they’re so fun and a great way to help improve my googling skills!

No one should be jailed for using marijuana and UP TO a certain amount in possession. It should still be a crime to possess unreasonable amounts of marijuana to limit the illegal sale of it.

"We are not getting into the weed business though" Lmao Darn I want the Green's Greens!

I need one of these deep dives like- every day for all the things I see online. This is a service to humanity. There should be a Crash Course that's just how to do this and why everyone needs to do this and that it's great. Thank you for these, please keep doing them. Especially for all the political stuff this year.

If you are at all debating turning this into a real series, let me be a vote for YES PLEASE! Hell, I'd even suggest that you could turn this kind of thing into a Crash Course series about Media Literacy and Research

Federal crimes are exclusively related to interstate offenses. Simple possession of marijuana is almost impossible to exclusively prosecute on the federal level. Whenever simple possession is prosecuted, it comes along with an additional interstate federal offense, such as trafficking of marijuana, illegal firearm possession, or some other offense where the possession of marijuana is incidental to the investigation of the primary offense. This doesn't even begin to touch on "three strikes" sentences, wherein simple possession is added to a two charge prosecution for ancillary crimes in order to trigger mandatory minimum sentences (a gun possession, plus a trafficking charge, plus possession of a scheduled prohibited substance, for example). This can result in a first-time offender being relabeled as a career or lifetime criminal because piling separate offenses that take place together as separate offenses for the purposes of sentencing. The whole system is busted.

I wore my acorn socks yesterday! But I wouldn't need 12 minutes to arrive at "seems like Twitter is bad!" 😂

I absolutely want this to be an ongoing series please.

He did say no one _should_ be in prison, their records _should_ be expunged. It wasn't a lie, or even really a false promise. It was simply a statement of where he stands, and what he would like to influence into happening.

So glad you covered this!! I've been wondering

Glad Hank pointed out the ridiculous conflating of heroin and LSD that the media likes to do.

"Not recently... because its legal now." 🤣🤣🤣

I love these 'join Hank on his latest hyperfocus rabbit hole' vids 🤌✨

At 4:20 "Weed is bad for you... none of these things are good for you." Um, Hank, there are children with severe epilepsy who've tried every other drug but only found cannabis effective at preventing seizures. There are also millions of people with pain disorders who've tried every other drug, but found cannabis to be most effective at helping their pain and stepping away from the opioids doctors pushed on them. Also, research has found that, in seniors, cannabis use prevents development of dementia. There are so many conditions for which cannabis can be objectively "good for you," especially by comparison to the alternatives offered by the medical system which can be deadly. Hank just hasn't studied the topic in depth, so he makes inaccurate statements not seeing the big picture. The only way cannabis can kill you is if a large bail of it falls on you. What Hank meant to say was "Cannabis isn't harmless or risk-free," which neither is sugar or chocolate or water. Further, in a free country, how can you commit a crime against yourself? No one should be punished for crimes against their own health. No one should vote for a politician who supports continuing the arbitrary and rights-violating war on drug users.