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Tag: Joe Biden

  • Biden Won't Legalize Marijuana Because It May Be "A Gateway Drug"

    Biden Won't Legalize Marijuana Because It May Be "A Gateway Drug"

    The former VP is holding his ground on opposing marijuana legalization despite its overall acceptance amongst his presidential candidate peers.

    During a recent town hall in Las Vegas, former Vice President Joe Biden reinforced his anti-marijuana legalization stance, citing the lack of evidence of its effects as a major issue.

    “The truth of the matter is, there’s not nearly been enough evidence that has been acquired as to whether or not it is a gateway drug,” Biden said during the Vegas townhall, according to Business Insider. “It’s a debate, and I want a lot more before I legalize it nationally. I want to make sure we know a lot more about the science behind it.”

    Back in March, Andrew Bates, a campaign spokesperson for Biden, solidified the former VP’s stance on marijuana — Biden believed that the Schedule I drug should be decriminalized and that states should be able to make decisions about legalizing it. 

    States Rights

    “Vice President Biden does not believe anyone should be in jail simply for smoking or possessing marijuana. He supports decriminalizing marijuana and automatically expunging prior criminal records for marijuana possession, so those affected don’t have to figure out how to petition for it or pay for a lawyer,” Bates said in a statement to CNN. “He would allow states to continue to make their own choices regarding legalization and would seek to make it easier to conduct research on marijuana’s positive and negative health impacts by rescheduling it as a Schedule II drug.” 

    Currently, marijuana is classified as a Schedule ! drug alongside heroin and LSD. This scheduling makes researching the drug and its possible short and long-term effects extremely difficult.

    “Indeed, the moment that a drug gets a Schedule I, which is done in order to protect the public so that they don’t get exposed to it, it makes research much harder,” NIDA Director Nora Volkow said, according to Marijuana Moment. “This is because [researchers] actually have to through a registration process that is actually lengthy and cumbersome.”

    Not Enough Evidence

    The debate over whether marijuana is a gateway drug is ongoing. The CDC says more research is needed to make that determination while the National Institute on Drug Abuse also appears to suggest there is not enough evidence to declare marijuana a gateway drug. 

    Studies have shown that while there is a correlation between marijuana use and the use of other drugs, the same can be said of alcohol and tobacco. But multiple studies say there is not enough evidence to prove that it specifically leads to the use of harder drugs.

    Biden’s stance on marijuana legalization goes against many of his fellow democratic candidates for president.

    Where Other Presidential Candidates Stand

    Kamala Harris took to Twitter on Monday, Nov 18, to laud her new bill and take a jab at Biden.

    “Let’s be clear: marijuana isn’t a gateway drug and should be legalized. Glad to see my bill with Rep. Nadler take the next step in the House this week.” Harris’s new bill would remove marijuana from the Controlled Substances list altogether, expunge marijuana-related crimes from records and protect people of color from being dicriminated against for marijuana use or possession.

    Cory Booker, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Andrew Yang, Pete Buttigieg, Julian Castro all support marijuana legalization. 

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Joe Biden Applauds Son For Speaking Out About Addiction Struggles

    Joe Biden Applauds Son For Speaking Out About Addiction Struggles

    In a recent New Yorker profile, Hunter Biden went on the record about his long-time addiction struggles.  

    Presidential hopeful Joe Biden and his wife Jill are speaking out about their son Hunter’s experience with addiction after the publication of a New Yorker profile that detailed Hunter’s decades-long struggle with substance misuse. 

    “Hunter’s been through some tough times, but he’s fighting, he’s never given up. He’s the most honorable, decent person I know,” Joe Biden said in a CNN interview, according to The Hill. 

    Biden added that Hunter’s participation in the New Yorker profile “took enormous courage.”

    In the profile, Hunter spoke out about his drug and alcohol abuse. 

    “Look, everybody faces pain,” Hunter told the magazine. “Everybody has trauma. There’s addiction in every family. I was in that darkness. I was in that tunnel—it’s a never-ending tunnel. You don’t get rid of it. You figure out how to deal with it.”

    Red Flags

    Hunter admits that during college he drank socially and used cocaine. When cocaine was unavailable once, he smoked crack. “It didn’t have much of an effect,” he said.

    However, as his career as a lobbyist and consultant took off, he began drinking more. When he started staying in Washington rather than getting on his commuter train home, it was a red flag. 

    “When I found myself making the decision to have another drink or get on a train, I knew I had a problem,” he said. 

    His wife at the time urged him to try a sober month. “And I wouldn’t drink for 30 days, but, on day 31, I’d be right back to it,” he said. 

    After connecting with AA, Hunter was sober for seven years before relapsing in 2010, and again in 2013. In 2014 he was discharged from the Navy after testing positive for cocaine. 

    In 2015, Hunter enrolled in a treatment program, followed by another in 2016. However, later that year he admits to buying crack, and drug paraphernalia was found in his vehicle.

    Divorce proceedings from 2017 included the claim that Hunter had “created financial concerns for the family by spending extravagantly on his own interests (including drugs, alcohol, prostitutes, strip clubs, and gifts for women with whom he has sexual relations), while leaving the family with no funds to pay legitimate bills.” 

    More recently, Hunter said that his father’s support has helped him endure his addiction. In May he told his father, “Dad, I always had love. And the only thing that allowed me to see it was the fact that you never gave up on me, you always believed in me.”

    Facing Addiction 

    Joe Biden has continued to stand by Hunter.

    “Everybody has to deal with these issues in a way that’s consistent with who they are and what they are,” he said this week. “The idea that we treat mental health and physical health as though somehow they’re distinct—it’s health.”

    Jill Biden, Hunter’s stepmother, said that her family, like many others, has had no choice but to face addiction head-on. 

    “We’ve seen his struggle and we know most American families are dealing with some sort of struggle like we are, and I think they can relate to us as parents who are hopeful and are supportive of our son,” she said. 

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Where Joe Biden Stands On Marijuana

    Where Joe Biden Stands On Marijuana

    Biden is one of the few Democratic presidential candidates that opposes legalization. 

    High Times detailed 2020 presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden’s position on marijuana policy, which embraces decriminalization and federally supporting cannabis research—but stops short at legalization.

    Biden, who as a U.S. senator helped to pass punitive drug crime bills that he has since described as “a big mistake,” supports rescheduling marijuana as a Schedule II drug, allowing states to determine their own laws regarding legalization, and expunging prior marijuana possession convictions. 

    But Biden has opposed legalization in the past and continues to do so as a presidential candidate, which places him opposite fellow Democratic contenders like Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris on that issue.

    A campaign spokesman for Biden, who told supporters in New Hampshire on March 16 that “no one should be in jail for smoking marijuana,” clarified the candidate’s position in a statement to CNN. “Vice President Biden… supports decriminalizing marijuana and automatically expunging prior records for marijuana possession, so those affected don’t have to figure out how to petition for it or pay for a lawyer,” said Andrew Bates.

    Bates also noted that Biden “would allow states to continue to make their own choices regarding legalization and would seek to make it easier to conduct research on marijuana’s positive and negative health impacts by rescheduling it as a schedule 2 drug.”

    As CNN noted, Biden supported decriminalization efforts as vice president under the Obama administration. In a 2014 interview with Time, Biden said, “I think the idea of focusing significant resources on interdicting or convicting people for smoking marijuana is a waste of our resources.” But he added that legalization was outside of the administration’s policy stance. 

    At the time of that interview, Biden had earned a reputation as a hardliner on the War on Drugs, supporting tougher penalties and prison sentences for drug offenses, including the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988, which imposed more severe sentencing for possession of crack cocaine than its powder form.

    The bill, which led to disproportionate rates of incarceration in African-American and Latino communities, was later described by Biden as a “big mistake” which “should have been eliminated.”

    Biden’s support for decriminalization and other measures is shared by two other presidential hopefuls: former Colorado governor John Hickenlooper and Senator Sherrod Brown.

    The majority of the other 2020 Democratic candidates, including Senators Cory Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand, Amy Klobuchar, Mayor Pete Buttigieg and former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro, all support marijuana legalization.

    View the original article at thefix.com