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Hello and welcome to the Americano podcast, a series of discussions about American politics and life.

My name is Freddie Gray. I'm the deputy editor of the spectator. I am delighted to be

joined by my good friend Madeline Cairns today, who is a staff writer at the National Review. And we're

going to be talking about President Joe Biden and marijuana. Maddie, the big news of today,

in fact, it was last night or yesterday in America,

is that President Biden has decreed that cannabis possession should no longer be a federal

crime and that he's pardoned, in effect, up to about 6,500 people who have a conviction for

marijuana possession.

I think a lot of people, regardless of where they stand on the debate about marijuana,

think this is probably a sensible move because marijuana is effectively legal in many American states,

and therefore there's a sort of incongruity between the law and lots of people being penalised and, in fact, in prison for marijuana possession.

What's your take on it?

Well, I think the first thing to note is the timing of this.

So obviously, we're a few weeks out from the midterms.

And this is Biden trying to energize and mobilize

Democratic voters, frankly. Republicans have been trying to run on being tough on crime. And the

great counter argument to those who are tough on crime is that they are racist. And this issue of marijuana, certainly

going back to the 70s, has long been associated with this war on drugs that disproportionately

targeted and affected black Americans. And so I think what he's doing here is he's positioning

himself, he's sort of showing his anti-racist street cred,

and he's signaling in what is largely, as you know, on its own terms, it's an uncontroversial

...