Biden Makes a Rare Mention of Marijuana in the State of the Union

Buried in President Biden’s fiery re-election pitch in his State of the Union address on Thursday night was a brief mention of an issue he has often been reluctant to embrace: marijuana.

It was the first time Mr. Biden had raised the subject in the annual address, a high-profile inclusion that could represent a shift toward promoting the efforts he has made to liberalize cannabis policy. And it renewed speculation that a president who has long been personally conservative on the issue might be ready to tiptoe more fully into positions that enjoy wide support not only in his party but in the broader public as he gears up for a difficult campaign.

Federal law puts marijuana in the same category as drugs like heroin and LSD, and Mr. Biden has shied away from calling for its legalization. But in his speech, he touched on the more limited steps he had been taking to sand off the hard edges of the law.

As he rattled off goals and initiatives on guns, police reform and domestic violence, he also included “directing my cabinet to review the federal classification of marijuana, and expunging thousands of convictions for the mere possession, because no one should be jailed for simply using.”

Decriminalizing cannabis and automatically expunging convictions for its use were among the president’s promises in his first campaign, and his administration has since moved toward that goal, proposing to downgrade marijuana’s classification away from the hardest drugs and issuing thousands of pardons and commutations for nonviolent drug offenses.

Any move toward relaxing marijuana policy could prove fertile political ground. Polling has shown steady increases over time in the number of Americans who support legalization.