According to a recent Gallup Poll, 60% of Americans favor the legalization of marijuana. This is consistent with previous findings over the past couple of years.
So it might be a popular decision for Democratic Nominee for president Bernie Sanders (I-VT)who became the first – and so far – only major-party candidate to say he now supports making pot legal.
CNN debate moderator Juan Carlos Lopez asked Sanders about his opinion, “Senator Sanders, right here in Nevada, there will be a measure to legalize recreational marijuana on the 2016 ballot. You’ve said you smoked marijuana twice; it didn’t quite work for you. If you were a Nevada resident, how would you vote?” Senator Sanders responded “I suspect I would vote yes” – to much applause. Though some states have legalized both medicinal and recreational use of pot, the sale of pot is still a violation of federal law.
Sanders co-sponsored House Resolution HR2592, States’ Rights to Medical Marijuana (14 years ago), but it was not until the Democratic debate on October 13 that he came out in favor of the legalization of pot.
“And I would vote yes because I am seeing in this country too many lives being destroyed for non-violent offenses. We have a criminal justice system that lets CEOs on Wall Street walk away, and yet we are imprisoning or giving jail sentences to young people who are smoking marijuana. I think we have to think through this war on drugs…which has done an enormous amount of damage. We need to rethink our criminal justice system, we we’ve got a lot of work to do in that area.”