John Fetterman, lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania, now a Senate candidate and one of the best liberal communicators to come along in decades, met with President Joe Biden in early September with an urgent plea: before the midterms, decriminalize marijuana. The meeting came after Fetterman tweeted a heartbreaking story about a black eye doctor in Pennsylvania who had gone to prison and lost his medical license for growing marijuana plants for his wife, who had become addicted to opioids to manage chronic pain. Soon after that meeting, the White House rejected Fetterman’s excellent suggestion in a public statement.

That’s a mistake. Biden should legalize marijuana now.

Always socially conservative, Biden used to oppose significant changes to federal drug laws. In this, he was aligned with Barack Obama, whose administration called the idea that weed was harmless “a false notion” and strongly opposed its legalization.