With less than 100 days until the November election — and with neither presidential contender taking a stand in support of cannabis legalization — the Marijuana Policy Project sent letters to the Biden campaign and the Trump administration urging both candidates to do better when it comes to cannabis policy. 

At a moment when cries for racial and criminal justice reform are echoing throughout the country, and a strong majority of Americans favor making cannabis legal, with support across all demographics, the time for meaningful cannabis policy change is now. 

MPP authored the letter to the Biden campaign in response to recommendations made to the presumptive Democratic nominee by a criminal justice task force created in partnership with Sen. Bernie Sanders. Although the final report contained many key provisions that are a major advancement from the law today, disappointingly, it did not include legalizing cannabis.

MPP urged Biden to adopt a more comprehensive approach and legalize marijuana for adults. Short of that, we advised a Biden administration to remove both criminal and non-criminal penalties associated with cannabis use and change federal law to more clearly open the door for states to regulate. In particular, we asked that equity and racial justice be a driving force behind all cannabis policy reformation. Read the Biden letter here.

Serving as a counterpoint to the Biden letter, MPP sent a similar letter to the Trump administration. Our letter to Trump covered similar areas of policy and outlined five actions the president could take now to help end the costly and destructive war on cannabis. Our suggestions to Trump included: 1) removing cannabis from the Controlled Substances Act; 2) pardoning federal, nonviolent cannabis offenders and championing expungement; 3) removing federal barriers for cannabis businesses; 4) issuing an executive order allowing all patients access to medical cannabis; and 5) expediting cannabis research. Read the Trump letter here. 

As the election cycle continues, MPP will continue holding the candidates accountable and injecting our issue into the dialogue, with the goal of pushing them to evolve their positions on cannabis policy. 

Read more

After a dozen hours of Democratic presidential candidate debates, there has been virtually no discussion about cannabis policy reform, leaving advocates sincerely disappointed. At a time when several pieces of cannabis legislation are pending in Congress, the absence of any cannabis-focused discussion is even more frustrating. Any list of issues important to Democratic primary voters would have to include not only the broad topic of criminal justice reform, but also the more narrow issue of cannabis policy.

Debate moderators have the opportunity and the responsibility to question the candidates on the issues facing the United States and its people. Federal cannabis prohibition happens to be one of these issues — yet there has not been one direct question focused on this. A recent poll found that legalizing cannabis is more popular than free college tuition, a $15 minimum wage, gun control, or a universal basic income. But you wouldn’t know it based on the questions posed to candidates during the debates.

Is it out of ignorance that debate moderators fail to ask about cannabis policy reform, or is it something worse? Do they think the topic is just not serious enough to ask about? Regardless,  the drug war is an issue many viewers care about, evidenced by the fact that on the rare occasion when the topic is broached, it almost always comes from one of the network’s social media partners. Yet, there’s apparently time to question Cory Booker about his vegan diet. Is veganism resulting in more than half a million arrests per year? Are there currently bills in Congress to end a failed policy on vegan prohibition? How about a policy question that’s at the forefront of people’s minds — one related to the  fact that hundreds of thousands of individuals are still being criminalized for using a substance that is safer than alcohol?

Not only have the moderators let us down by leaving cannabis out of the discussion, the candidates have too. Rarely has a candidate taken the opportunity to inject the issue of cannabis reform into a tangential topic such as criminal justice reform or racism. While the candidates may sound good discussing what they will do if elected president, many are having problems squaring the future with their past. During the last debate, the two biggest dodgers were Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.

Harris was questioned about her current support for legalization despite having prosecuted cannabis offenses during her time as California attorney general. She refused to directly answer the question, and the moderators, in turn, failed to dig deeper.

The most pressing question the Marijuana Policy Project wants an answer to and wants the public to hear is, “what role are you playing in the marijuana policy reform debate in your state and/or at the federal level, and how has your position evolved over time?” Harris had the opportunity to respond to just that but gave us nothing. Harris’ lack of response is unsatisfying, but it’s not too surprising considering Harris has also refused to answer questions regarding her vote on California’s Prop 64, the successful legalization initiative coordinated by a coalition of groups, including MPP.

Similar to MPP’s question for the candidates, a question from the Drug Policy Alliance focuses specifically on one candidate, asking, “what would you do differently as Biden in the 90s?” While Vice President Biden is the only candidate who mentioned the word “marijuana” during the most recent debate, his position showed that he is still not aligned with the majority of Americans who support legalization. Instead, he suggested that cannabis offenses should be classified as misdemeanors, many of which carry hefty fines and jail time. This was a perfect opportunity for the other candidates to step up and voice their support and reasoning for legalizing cannabis, but all we heard was silence. While many others on the stage have called for both ending federal prohibition and broader criminal justice reform, they failed to vocalize it, thereby missing a big opportunity.

There is no excuse for the lack of cannabis-focused discussion on the debate stage during the 2020 presidential race. It’s a bipartisan issue with nearly 70% support from the American public. It’s an issue that the president and Congress have the power to solve. It’s an issue that a majority of Americans want resolved. And most crucially, it’s an issue that is still causing harm to many of our citizens. We expect more questions, and the American people deserve more answers. 

Don Murphy, Marijuana Policy Project, Director of Federal Policies

Read more

Last month, MPP partnered with ChangePolitics for the launch of its new platform, which is designed to ask questions of the presidential candidates and get them on the record about various policy issues.

One of MPP’s questions made it into the top 10 “Most Popular in New Hampshire,” and the Concord Monitor editorial team selected it as one of the final five to be answered by the candidates just ahead of the nation’s first primary election on February 9. 

If elected, how would your administration address the current tension between state and federal marijuana laws?

You can check out the responses from the Democratic candidates and the responses from the Republican candidates at ChangePolitics.org. Also be sure to visit MPP's profile page to view and vote for all of our questions so we can get more responses from the candidates.

Read more

Read more

MPP has upgraded Mike Huckabee, Hillary Clinton, and Bernie Sanders in its report card-style voter guide to the 2016 major party presidential candidates. The voter guide can be viewed online at http:// mpp.org/president.

More changes could follow the Republican candidate debate scheduled to take place Wednesday in Boulder, Colorado, where the candidates are likely to discuss the state’s laws that regulate marijuana for adult and medical use.

From The Hill:

[caption id="attachment_9295" align="alignright" width="201"] Mike Huckabee (Photo: Gage Skidmore)[/caption]

"This idea of recreational marijuana, let’s let Colorado have at it for a few years and let’s see how that works out for them,” Huckabee told a local Iowa television station earlier this month. "I’ve been to Amsterdam a few times; I don’t want us to look like Amsterdam. And a lot of people in Colorado aren’t liking the way that’s headed either.

“I’m willing to let states operate under the 10th Amendment,” the former Arkansas governor added. "I’m willing for the states — if they think that marijuana and the legalization of it is a great thing — I’m willing for them to experiment and find out. And if it works and it turns out that the presence of recreational marijuana makes them a more prosperous state … well heck, we may just all want to reach out there and grab that.”

Read more

Last week, Republican presidential candidates were asked about their positions on marijuana policy reform. While most of them responded that they would let states determine their own policies, they also stated their opposition to making marijuana legal for adults and revealed their serious misunderstandings of the relative harms of marijuana compared to alcohol and other drugs.

Here is the portion of the debate concerning marijuana policy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ns1njaMZKVs

Vice's coverage included some great comments from MPP's Dan Riffle:

Riffle added that he was disappointed that "scientifically incorrect" information mentioned during the debate was not challenged, particularly Christie's assertion that marijuana is a gateway drug.

"It's troubling to have presidential candidates to be so misinformed on marijuana," said Riffle. "The Institute of Medicine, the nation's foremost authority on science, medicine, and health, has said there's absolutely nothing about the physiological properties of marijuana that leads people to use other drugs."

Riffle noted that he agrees with former Hewlett-Packard executive Carly Fiorina's comment during the debate that young people are being misled "when we tell them that marijuana is just like having a beer," but not for the reasons she implied.

"It's not like having a beer," he said. "It's safer. And there's an abundance of medical and scientific research that has shown this."

Click here to see MPP's guide to the 2016 presidential candidates.

Read more