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Over the past decade, parts of the country have finally started easing up on marijuana prohibition. With every election, a growing number of politicians has become vocal about legalizing pot not only for medical consumption, but for adult recreational use. More progressive elected officials, such as New York representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, even push for funding medical psychedelic research, reports Forbes.
As the 2020 presidential election quickly approaches, Democratic candidates are fine-tuning their thoughts on marijuana policy. Some continue to label marijuana as a gateway drug while others blame the War on Drugs for a system of mass incarceration that disproportionately hurt black and brown communities, pushing to pardon those convicted and sentenced for nonviolent, possession-only offenses.
Meanwhile, the country has never been more in favor of weed. Sixty-seven percent of Americans favor legalization, according to a recent Pew Research poll. Pro-legalization advocates have welcomed these changes, though the medical community has raised concerns about marijuana use and its effect on brain development for young people (though some have said the research is not yet clear). Interestingly, a recent study found that in states that have legalized recreational marijuana, use among young people actually dropped.
Teen Vogue examined where the current Democratic candidates stand on cannabis legalization.
Bernie Sanders
The Vermont senator has historically been in favor of legalizing pot, introducing legislation on federal legalization like the Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition Act of 2015.
On his campaign website, Sanders’s current plan (released at 4:20 p.m.) calls for federal legalization within the first 100 days in office via executive action; expunging all marijuana-related convictions from criminal records; reinvesting revenue into communities directly impacted by drug policing; and ensuring the newly legalized industry wouldn’t turn into Big Tobacco.
Cory Booker
New Jersey senator Cory Booker introduced the Marijuana Justice Act in 2017 and then again this year, Fortune reports, with cosponsors including other current and former presidential candidates like Sanders, Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren, and California senator Kamala Harris. In addition to removing cannabis as a schedule I drug from the Controlled Substances Act, the bill would also expunge existing cannabis-related federal criminal records.
Shanel Lindsay, owner of Ardent and a lawyer who is an appointed member of the Massachusetts Cannabis Advisory Board, told Teen Vogue that Booker has been vocal about his opposition to the war on drugs. The former mayor of Newark called it a “war on people” in a June Medium post, citing how it has disproportionately affected black Americans. (The Drug Policy Alliance notes women are the fastest growing prison population in the nation, and that over 61% of women in federal prisons are there for nonviolent drug charges.)
Booker is also intentional about protecting immigrants from overly harsh drug laws. Earlier this year, he introduced the Remove Marijuana From Deportable Offenses Act to protect immigrants, including those working in the legal cannabis industry from citizenship denial and deportation, reports Forbes. Even in regions with legal pot, noncitizens are still vulnerable to prosecution under federal controlled substance law. A U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services’ memo this past April clarified that violation of federal (but in many cases not state) drug law constituted a bar to establishing “good moral character.” A 2015 Human Rights Watch report found that over 34,000 immigrants who were deported between 2007 and 2012 had cannabis possession as their most serious offense.
Elizabeth Warren
The Massachusetts senator has adopted a more explicitly pro-marijuana stance over the past few years. Back in 2016, Warren declined to explicitly endorse Question 4, the legalization referendum a majority of state voters would ultimately approve. She told reporters at the time that she was “open” to recreational legalization.
As a congresswoman, she introduced the Strengthening the Tenth Amendment Through Entrusting States (STATES) Act of 2018 to prevent federal government interfering with state cannabis policy. Additionally, alongside Hawaii representative Tulsi Gabbard, she supports legalization as a means to alleviate the country’s growing opioid-addiction crisis, reports the Washington Post, due to the potential of medical marijuana as a pain-relieving treatment.
Warren’s presidential campaign platform takes steps to address the legacy of the drug war, including legalization and the elimination of past convictions.
Joe Biden
“By far, the worst [candidate on pot] is Joe Biden,” Lindsay, the attorney and marijuana advocate, told Teen Vogue. The former vice president’s opposition to legalization dates back to 1974, according to Rolling Stone, and he hasn’t moved that far since. As a senator from Delaware, he helped develop the Office of National Drug Control Policy, a branch of the executive office dedicated to domestic anti-drug efforts, whose director is colloquially known as the country’s “drug czar.” Vox reports that Biden was publicly critical of then president George H.W. Bush in the late 1980s for not being tough enough on drug laws.
The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, one of Biden’s signature pieces of legislation, is blamed for increasing penalties for certain drug crimes, and has been a keynote bill blamed for fueling mass incarceration.
Lindsay criticized Biden’s conservative stance on decriminalization, calling him a “crusader for prohibition” and “architect of the continued war on drugs and criminalization.” Most recently, as the Washington Post reported, Biden suggested pot was a “gateway drug.”
Andrew Yang
The lawyer, nonprofit leader, and entrepreneur favors legalization from a criminal-justice standpoint, calling marijuana criminalization “stupid and racist” in a December 2018 tweet. Specifically, the Democratic candidate prioritizes fully legalizing marijuana, expunging federal marijuana-related possession convictions, and identifying those behind bars for nonviolent drug crimes for potential early release, according to his campaign website. Per Business Insider, Yang said he’d do this on April 20, 2021, and “would high-five them on the way out of jail.”
Though Yang is even selling marijuana-themed merchandise on his campaign website, he has yet to solidify any further stances on pot policy and details on his criminal-justice plan. Still, cryptocurrency site CCN predicts a Yang presidency would boost cannabis stocks.
Mike Bloomberg
As mayor of New York City, Bloomberg favored strict enforcement of laws against marijuana use. He has repeatedly condemned the drug as harmful, blaming it for driving down children’s IQs and calling legalization “perhaps the stupidest thing anybody has ever done” in public remarks earlier this year.
After announcing his presidential run, Bloomberg told the Wall Street Journal that he supports decriminalization of low-level possession offenses. But unlike most of the field, he said he remains opposed to the legalization of recreational or medical marijuana.
Pete Buttigieg
The South Bend, Indiana, mayor favors marijuana legalization. He’s also one of the few presidential candidates in the race to actively support decriminalization of drugs beyond just marijuana.
Named after the 19th-century civil rights leader Frederick Douglass, the Douglass Plan — the reform outline cited on his campaign website — states, “we will, on the federal level, eliminate incarceration for drug possession, reduce sentences for other drug offenses and apply these reductions retroactively, legalize marijuana and expunge past convictions.”
Buttigieg admitted he’d used pot “a handful of times” while touring a dispensary in suburban Las Vegas. He also said he learned a lesson about racial privilege and drug laws when a police officer let him go after catching him with marijuana while he was a student at Harvard, reports the Boston Globe.
Amy Klobuchar
In addition to cosponsoring Warren’s STATES Act, the Minnesota senator supported the Marijuana Effective Drug Studies (MEDS) Act of 2017 to expand cannabis research. While she does favor legalization, she breaks from several other 2020 candidates by pushing for states to develop and pass their own cannabis policies, according to Town Hall.
Minnesota Public Radio notes that her recent support for legalization represents a “full turn from her stance on the issue from when she first entered the public arena. As a candidate for Hennepin County attorney two decades ago, she opposed legalization during a 1998 debate: “I am opposed to the legalization of marijuana. I believe when you look at across the world at what's been happening, people have realized that legalizing drugs is not the answer.”
Tulsi Gabbard
The Hawaii lawmaker has supported a host of federal legislation to loosen pot policy. This July the former state legislator and Honolulu City Council member cosponsored the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement (MORE) Act of 2019 to not only federally decriminalize marijuana and expunge prior convictions for certain offenses, but invest in underserved communities most impacted by the drug war. Gabbard also introduced the Marijuana Data Collection Act of 2019, cosponsored by Ocasio-Cortez, to study the effects of state-level legal cannabis programs. She also introduced the Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition Act of 2019 to no longer classify cannabis as a Schedule I controlled substance from the Controlled Substances Act, allowing states to regulate pot as they (and their voters) choose.
Editor's note: This piece was updated to remove a section on Julián Castro after he dropped out of the race on January 2. Shanel Lindsay was originally identified as a Cannabis Control Commissioner for Massachusetts, rather than an appointed member of the Massachusetts Cannabis Advisory Board.
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