WEED COULD MATTER IN 2020
SEAN RAYFORD / GETTY IMAGES
New York magazine asks whether Joe Biden’s “fringe views” on legalization could get President Trump re-elected. The top-tier candidate recently said he supports a state’s right to legalize, but he wants a lot more research into whether weed is a gateway drug before national legalization. He proposes making cannabis a schedule three drug to facilitate research, a move that could make life miserable for the industry.
Cannabist (R.I.P.)
In New York, journalist Eric Levitz argues “Salt-of-the-earth Americans in flyover country want big government to keep its hands off their bongs.” I’ve similarly said no politician wants to be the one who takes away the people’s weed, but Levitz has lots more charts to make the case.
Slate
At this week’s Democratic debate in Atlanta, Biden was enough of an outlier that lagging candidate Sen. Cory Booker, (N.J.) joked he thought Biden “might have been high” when he expressed his views on legalization.
- In Politico, Mona Zhang writes Biden’s views on pot “put another target on his back.”
- On his podcast, Joe Rogan went off on Biden.
However, the race’s dynamic could change now that former New York City Mayor and billionaire Michael Bloomberg said he would run and placed a huge $30M+ ad buy. In January Bloomberg called legalizing marijuana “perhaps the stupidest thing anybody has ever done.“
AP, The Hill
- As mayor, Bloomberg was not shy about imposing his paternalistic views.
