Cory Booker and 2020 rivals back legalizing pot
Sen. Cory Booker introduced a bill Thursday that would legalize marijuana nationwide.
Titled the Marijuana Justice Act, the bill is being co-sponsored by other candidates seeking the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, including Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris and Kirsten Gillibrand.
“The War on Drugs has not been a war on drugs, it’s been a war on people, and disproportionately people of color and low-income individuals,” Booker said in a press release. “The Marijuana Justice Act seeks to reverse decades of this unfair, unjust, and failed policy by removing marijuana from the list of controlled substances and making it legal at the federal level.”
Too many lives have been ruined because of the War on Drugs. That’s why I am proud to co-sponsor @corybooker’s legislation to legalize marijuana and expunge the records of those convicted of offenses related to marijuana use and possession.
— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) February 28, 2019
600,000 people, disproportionately people of color, were arrested for possession of marijuana in 2017.
It is time to decriminalize marijuana, expunge past marijuana convictions and end the failed war on drugs.— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) February 28, 2019
The disparity in who gets arrested for marijuana possession is one sign of how unjustly our drug laws are enforced. It's time to legalize marijuana nationwide and start repairing the harm done to communities of color by the War on Drugs. We need the Marijuana Justice Act. pic.twitter.com/fbaen37m8r
— Kirsten Gillibrand (@SenGillibrand) February 28, 2019
In recent years, 10 states and Washington, D.C., have passed laws legalizing marijuana use for adults over the age of 21. A total of 33 states have passed laws legalizing the drug for medical use. But marijuana is still considered a Schedule 1 drug by the Drug Enforcement Agency, setting up an enforcement conflict between federal and state law enforcement agencies.
Two members of Congress from California, Rep. Ro Khanna and Rep. Barbara Lee, introduced the House version of the Marijuana Justice Act.
President Trump offered his support in February to a separate bill introduced by Warren and Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., which seeks to block the federal government from enforcing federal drug charges in states that have legalized the drug.
An October poll by the Pew Research Center found that 62 percent of Americans now believe that marijuana should be legalized. An overwhelming 74 percent of millennial voters support doing so.
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