Democrats call for ‘pathway’ to marijuana legalization
WASH POST
ORLANDO
— The Democratic Party endorsed a "reasoned pathway to future
legalization" of marijuana and called for the drug to be downgraded in
the Controlled Substances Act, in a tense and unexpected victory for
supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Going into the platform
committee meeting, Sanders's campaign had no new language about
marijuana. The senator from Vermont had favored state-to-state
legalization efforts, and the language approved by the drafting
committee called for "policies that will allow more research on
marijuana, as well as reforming our laws to allow legal marijuana
businesses to exist without uncertainty."
But on Saturday
afternoon, the committee brought up an amendment that would have removed
marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act. David King, a lawyer and
Sanders delegate from Tennessee, argued that marijuana was added to the
act — giving the drug the same legal classification as heroin — during a
"craze" to hurt "hippies and blacks." The amendment, however, was
headed for defeat, with some committee members worrying that it went too
far and undermined state-by-state efforts to study decriminalization.
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