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Tag: presidential election 2020

  • 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

  • Yang, Beto Discuss Unusual Solutions to The Opioid Epidemic

    Yang, Beto Discuss Unusual Solutions to The Opioid Epidemic

    The presidential candidates made the case for marijuana legalization and opioid decriminalization during a recent debate.

    Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke spoke about marijuana as a replacement for opioid pain pills during the Democratic primary debate on Tuesday (Oct. 15), while fellow candidate Andrew Yang expressed his support for decriminalizing opioids and opening safe injection sites. 

    O’Rourke shared a story about a veteran he had met who was addicted to heroin. He suggested that if the man had access to marijuana, he wouldn’t have become hooked on opioids, according to Marijuana Moment. 

    Marijuana Legalization

    “Now imagine that veteran, instead of being prescribed an opioid, had been prescribed marijuana, because we made that legal in America [and] ensured the VA could prescribe it, expunge the arrest records for those who’d been arrested for possession and made sure that he was not prescribed something to which he would become addicted,” O’Rourke said. 

    Asked directly whether marijuana is part of the answer the the opioid crisis, O’Rourke answered, “Yes it is.”

    As O’Rourke was speaking, Yang said, “Yes, preach Beto.”

    Decriminalizing Opioids

    During the debate, Yang expressed his support not only for legalizing marijuana, but for decriminalizing opioids, including heroin. 

    He said, “We need to decriminalize opioids for personal use. We need to let this country know this is not a personal failing, this was a systemic government failing. Then we need to open up safe consumption and safe injection sites around the country because they save lives.” 

    Yang continued, “We have to recognize [addiction] is a disease of capitalism run amok.”

    He pointed out, “There was a point where there were more opioid prescriptions in the state of Ohio than human beings in the state of Ohio, and for some reason the federal government thought that was appropriate.”

    Public Health Issue

    Yang said that because the government was complicit in the over-sale of opioids, it needed to support people who are now addicted to opioids. 

    “If the government turned a blind eye to this company, spreading a plague among its people, then the least we can do is put a resource into work in our communities so that people have a fighting chance to get well, even though this is not a money problem,” he said. “We all know this is a human problem. Part of helping people get the treatment that they need is to let them know that they’re not going to be referred to a prison cell, they will be referred to treatment and counseling.”

    Other more mainstream candidates including Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have supported harm reduction policies as well. 

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Cory Booker Criticizes Biden Over Crime Bill That Intensified War On Drugs

    Cory Booker Criticizes Biden Over Crime Bill That Intensified War On Drugs

    Booker wants Biden to take more accountability for his role in passing legislation that exacerbated sentencing disparities in black and brown communities.  

    Presidential candidate Senator Cory Booker brought up Joe Biden’s 1994 crime bill as a key factor in the “War on Drugs” and the increasingly disproportionate incarceration of people of color in an interview on NBC’s Meet the Press. 

    The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, which then-Senator Joe Biden helped to write and pass, increased the number and average length of prison sentences in the U.S. and incentivized local governments to build more prisons and jails. Criminal justice reform advocates have pointed to this bill as the start of an accelerated rate of mass incarceration.

    “These are very typical, painful issues to the point now that, because of a lot of the legislation that Joe Biden endorsed, this war on drugs, which has been a war on people, we now have had a 500% increase in the prison population since 1980, overwhelmingly black and brown,” Booker said. “There’s more African Americans under criminal supervision today than all the slaves in 1850. These are real, painful, hurtful issues.”

    Sentencing Disparities Persist

    Booker also pointed out that other Democrats who were involved in the creation and passage of the 1994 bill have expressed remorse while Joe Biden has continued to defend it.

    “But what we’ve seen, from the vice president, over the last month, is an inability to talk candidly about the mistakes he made, about things he could’ve done better, about how some of the decisions he made at the time, in difficult context, actually have resulted in really bad outcomes,” he said.

    According to The Sentencing Project, there are more people behind bars today for a drug-related offense than the entire prison and jail population for any crime in the year 1980. One in three black men will be behind bars during some period of their lives. That number is one in 17 for white men.

    Incarceration Rates Soar

    Incarceration rates, particularly for low-level drug offenses, have skyrocketed while crime rates have decreased overall across the country since 1980. Violent crime rates in particular have fallen sharply during the past 25 years, according to a report by the Pew Research Center.

    Senator Booker has made criminal justice reform a central issue for his 2020 presidential campaign. In June, he revealed a plan to commute the sentences of 17,000 prisoners convicted of drug-related crimes, followed by a bill to protect immigrants from being deported or denied entry into the country for cannabis possession.

    “For decades, this broken system has hollowed out entire communities, wasted billions of taxpayer dollars, and failed to make us safer,” Booker’s campaign website reads. “As president, Cory will fight to end the War on Drugs, implement bold and comprehensive reforms of our criminal justice system, and pursue restorative justice.”

    View the original article at thefix.com