Politics
Legalizing Marijuana Is ‘The Stupidest Thing Anybody Has Ever Done,’ Michael Bloomberg Says
Michael Bloomberg is doubling down on his opposition to marijuana legalization as he inches closer to deciding whether to run for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.
In a speech at the U.S. Naval Academy on Tuesday, the former New York City mayor talked about drug overdose deaths in recent years—a consequence of the nation’s opioid crisis—and then made an abrupt pivot to cannabis reform.
“We have a different kind of problem in America, for example,” he said. “Last year, in 2017, 72,000 Americans OD’d on drugs. In 2018, more people than that are OD-ing on drugs.”
“And today incidentally, we are trying to legalize another addictive narcotic,” he said, referencing marijuana, “which is perhaps the stupidest thing anybody has ever done. We’ve got to fight that, and that’s another thing that Bloomberg Philanthropies will work on it in public health.”
While speaking at Annapolis, former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg also blasted efforts to legalize marijuana, calling it "perhaps the stupidest thing we’ve ever done." pic.twitter.com/dN5sdJdYBt
— DJ Judd (@DJJudd) January 23, 2019
Bloomberg also defended controversial policing tactics he embraced as mayor, arguing that “stop-and-frisk worked” and that it wasn’t inherently racially discriminatory.
If he does ultimately run for president, Bloomberg will be one of the only Democratic candidates who actively opposes broad cannabis reform. That will put him at odds with the vast majority of voters in the party—75 percent of whom support legalizing cannabis, according to the most recent Gallup poll.
But in spite of that, Bloomberg hasn’t shied away from his unpopular position. Just last week, he criticized efforts to legalize marijuana during a separate speech at the University of Toronto.
“To go and encourage people—to make it easier for people to engage in a behavior that has a significant possibility of damaging people’s health—is just nonsensical,” he said. “This mad, passionate rush to let everybody do things without any research just isn’t something we would do in any other way.”
Meanwhile, the list of Democratic candidates who support marijuana reform efforts has continued to grow: Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Kamala Harris (D-CA) and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) all back legalization.
Potential 2020 Presidential Candidate Michael Bloomberg Calls Marijuana Legalization ‘Nonsensical’
Photo courtesy of Center for American Progress/Ralph Alswang.
Politics
Joe Biden Walks Back Marijuana ‘Gateway Drug’ Comment After Week Of Criticism
About one week after former Vice President Joe Biden said he opposed legalization in part because marijuana might be a gateway drug, the Democratic presidential candidate is now saying research doesn’t support that position.
In a call with reporters on Monday, the Nevada Independent’s Megan Messerly asked Biden whether he was wrong about suggesting that cannabis was a gateway to harder drugs at an earlier town hall event in Las Vegas.
Biden denied that he made the claim in the first place. “I didn’t,” he said. “I said some say pot was a gateway drug.”
After noting that he supports decriminalization, expunging prior records, releasing those incarcerated for marijuana offenses and rescheduling the plant, the former vice president formally walked back his position on whether existing scientific research demonstrates that cannabis leads to the use of other substances.
“I don’t think it is a gateway drug. There’s no evidence I’ve seen to suggest that.”
Here's @JoeBiden's full answer to me on whether he was wrong to suggest pot might be a gateway drug at a recent Las Vegas town hall.
"I don't think it is a gateway drug. There's no evidence I've seen that suggests that," he said. pic.twitter.com/DJzM7LutRy
— Megan Messerly (@meganmesserly) November 25, 2019
Click the image above to see the full transcript.
“That has been my position and continues to be my position,” he said.
“With regard to the total legalization of it, there are some in the medical community who say it needs to be made a Schedule II drug so there can be research studies, as not whether it is a gateway drug but whether or not it, when used in other combinations, may have a negative impact on people overcoming other problems, including in fact on young people in terms of brain development—a whole range of things that are beyond my expertise. There are serious medical folks who say we should study it more. Not that we should make it illegal, that we should be in a position where we criminalize it but where we should look at it.”
Listen to Joe Biden’s new marijuana comments below:
Audio courtesy of KUNR Public Radio.
These latest comments are a lot different from what the former vice president said just last week. At the town hall, Biden said “there’s not nearly been enough evidence that has been acquired as to whether or not it is a gateway drug.”
“It’s a debate, and I want a lot more before I legalize it nationally,” he said. “I want to make sure we know a lot more about the science behind it.”
Evidently, Biden took a crash course on cannabis in recent days.
Shortly after he made the gateway drug remarks, numerous high-profile lawmakers took him to task for peddling what’s widely considered a debunked theory.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), for example, described the former vice president’s remarks as a “Reagan-era talking point.”
Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Kamala Harris (D-CA), who are also presidential candidates, seemed to criticize Biden shortly after reports of the comments surfaced, implicitly contrasting their comprehensive legalization proposals with the former vice president’s stance.
Entrepreneur Andrew Yang, who is also running for the Democratic nomination, accurately predicted that Biden’s position would shift, though perhaps sooner than he anticipated.
The criticism over Biden’s comments culminated during last week’s presidential debate, where Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) proactively called out the former official for opposing cannabis legalization when it’s “already legal for privileged people, and the war on drugs has been a war on black and brown people.”
Sen. Booker on fmr. VP Biden's recent comments on the legalization of marijuana: "I thought you might have been high when you said it" #DemDebate pic.twitter.com/dQf55njB66
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) November 21, 2019
The senator’s mother wasn’t too keen on his joke about Biden being high when he made those remarks, however.
Shortly after Biden’s comments were publicized on Monday, Booker’s national press secretary, Sabrina Singh, questioned why the former vice president is maintaining his opposition to legalization when he now acknowledges that cannabis is not a gateway drug.
“If @JoeBiden finally agrees with @CoryBooker that marijuana is not a gateway drug, then why does he still oppose federal legalization?” she tweeted.
If @JoeBiden finally agrees with @CoryBooker that marijuana is not a gateway drug, then why does he still oppose federal legalization? https://t.co/x1ivgTWRzJ
— Sabrina Singh (@sabrinasingh24) November 25, 2019
But while the former vice president’s present opposition to legalization puts him at odds with other candidates on the stage and the majority of the American public, it’s not the only drug policy critique he’s faced. Civil rights groups have similarly highlighted that Biden played a key role in advancing punitive anti-drug laws during his time in the Senate—legislative actions that will presumably be harder to walk back than an off-hand remark.
Trump Says Drug Prohibition Doesn’t Work During Vaping Meeting
This story has been updated to include comment from Booker’s press secretary and additional context.
Politics
Trinidad And Tobago Government Introduces Marijuana Reform Bills
The government of Trinidad and Tobago brought two marijuana reform bills before Parliament on Friday—one to decriminalize low-level possession and another to legalize cannabis for medical and religious purposes.
During a speech before the House of Representatives, Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi said the administration wants to reduce the prison population, curb costs associated with marijuana-related incarceration and free up law enforcement resources to pursue serious crimes.
Under the first proposal, possession of up to 30 grams of cannabis would be decriminalized. Possession of more than 30 grams and up to 60 grams would be punishable by a “fixed penalty notice” of about USD $7,400 that would not impact an individual’s criminal record if the fine is paid.
Additionally, the legislation laid before the Parliament would provide a pathway to get prior possession records cleared if individuals petition the court.
Al-Rawi said that “in addressing the reform of the criminal justice system, many have ignored the profound effect that decriminalization of certain offenses can have in the criminal justice system.”
However, there are some provisions that reform advocates oppose, including new penalties against possession and distribution of other substances such as LSD, MDMA and ketamine. And while the legislation allows individuals to grow up to four plants for personal use, it specifies that those plants must be male, which do not produce flower. It’s unclear if that policy was intentional or instead is an oversight based on government officials’ misunderstanding of cannabis.
The separate legalization bill would allow for the sale, use and distribution of cannabis for medical, research and religious purposes, though it does not provide for a recreational market.
A government regulatory agency would be responsible for issuing a variety of licenses, including those for cultivators, laboratories, processors, dispensaries, importers, exporters and transporters. Licenses would only be approved for companies with at least 30 percent local control in order to “avoid the abuses that occurred with multinational domination in other territories.”
“The Government after significant research, wide stakeholder consultation and careful legislative scrutiny is of the firm view that it is the correct time to amend the Dangerous Drugs Act and to cause the strict licensing and regulation of the research, cultivation, supply and commercialization of marijuana through the establishment of a Cannabis Control Authority,” Al-Rawi said.
There would be steep penalties for those who unlawfully engage with legal medical or religious marijuana programs. For example, a person who “uses medicinal cannabis without being authorized to use medicinal cannabis by a prescription or recommendation from a medical practitioner” is liable to a fine and ten years in jail.
There would also be restrictions on public consumption under the proposals. People working in certain safety sensitive industries such as airlines or bus companies would face additional restrictions on consumption.
Al-Rawi said that “these bills laid in the House of Representatives today represent the work of a progressive Government dedicated in the mission of getting it done!”
“The benefits to the people of Trinidad and Tobago are so obvious now that the work has been done and put into context. It is axiomatic that the Criminal Justice System should focus on serious crime and that all roadblocks to justice should be immediately removed so that Judicial and law enforcement time can concentrate where it matters most. It is equally axiomatic that Trinidad and Tobago should be anxiously conscious of the developments across the world which have recognized the economic potential of cannabis production unshackled from mid-19th century colonial values.”
“Whilst others have slumbered, we have toiled,” he said. “We shall get it done!”
Prime Minister Keith Rowley also said on Thursday that the “privileged elites have been smoking marijuana undisturbed for the longest while, any legalizing now is to free up poor people from unnecessary jail,” noting that Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) made a similar point during a Democratic presidential debate last week.
“Social justice, social sense, economic sense and the management of crime and fairness to all under the Constitution—that is what it is.”
In a separate speech at the People’s National Movement (PNM) election meeting, Al-Rawi joked that the country has “the best cocoa in the world and perhaps we could have the best marijuana in the world.”
The attorney general emphasized the impact of marijuana criminalization, noting that there are about 85,000 possession cases bottlenecking the courts and 500 people currently sitting in jail over such cases simply because they don’t have the resources to obtain bail.
“These include people who use cannabis for medical purposes, for epilepsy, people caught with it and the man next to you had it and you get taken down,” he said on Thursday, according to the Trinidad and Tobago Guardian.
Al-Rawi said the government is in a position to effectively regulate the cannabis market but acknowledged that there would be some pushback to the proposals. That said, the leader of the opposition party, Kamla Persad Bissessar, has also expressed support for cannabis decriminalization.
This latest development comes one year after the heads of 19 Caribbean nations announced they would be reviewing marijuana reform proposals with an eye toward ending prohibition. Since then, several countries such as St. Kitts have moved to change their country’s cannabis laws.
Virginia Attorney General Hosts ‘Cannabis Summit’ To Advance Reform In New Democratic Legislature
Photo courtesy of Nicholas C. Morton.
Politics
Trump Says Drug Prohibition Doesn’t Work During Vaping Meeting
President Donald Trump seemed to acknowledge the failure of policies prohibiting drugs during a meeting on vaping.
“When you watch prohibition, when you look at the alcohol, you look at cigarettes, you look at it all, if you don’t give it to them, it’s going to come here illegally,” Trump said on Friday. “That’s the one problem I can’t seem to forget.”
The president was meeting with people from both sides of the debate on whether to enact restrictive moves such as a ban on flavored vaping products that his administration initially floated before dropping the idea.
“You just have to look at the history of it,” he said. “Now, instead of having a flavor that’s at least safe, they’re going to be having a flavor that’s poison. That’s a big problem”
Trump picked up on an argument that reform advocates have repeatedly raised. While some policymakers and prohibitionists have called for blanket bans on certain vaping products in response to a recent spike in vaping-related lung injuries, advocates say history has taught us that such an uncompromising approach will do more harm than good.
“How do you solve the fact that it’s going to be shipped in from Mexico? That’s a problem,” he said. “You have the same problem with drugs and everything else.”
The remarks echo a comment Trump made in 1990, when he voiced support for legalizing drugs to undermine the unregulated market.
‘We’re losing badly the war on drugs,” he said at the time. ”You have to legalize drugs to win that war. You have to take the profit away from these drug czars.”
While marijuana didn’t come up in the meeting last week, Trump’s position could also apply to the debate over contaminated THC cartridges that seem to have played a role in most vaping-related health complications. Prohibitionists have contended that the connection demonstrates why cannabis shouldn’t be legalized, even though officials in the Trump administration’s health agencies point out that the vast majority of those THC-related cases involved unregulated products obtained on the illicit market.
Marijuana reform advocates have argued that the fact that most vaping injuries are linked to illicit products shows why it’s important to have a legal, regulatory framework for marijuana, just like there are regulations for substances such as alcohol and tobacco that are designed to improve public health and safety.
Former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb has also signaled that the vaping crisis reveals a need for a federal regulatory scheme for the cannabis market.
Later in the Friday meeting, Trump seemed to embrace a harm reduction perspective on vaping products, noting that experts say vaping is significantly less dangerous than smoking combustable cigarettes. He also asked at one point about whether states should have the right to set their own age limit for being able to purchase e-cigarettes.
When it comes to marijuana, the president has said on a few recent occasions that he’s supportive of allowing states to set their own cannabis policies.
“It’s a very big subject and right now we are allowing states to make that decision,” Trump said in August. “A lot of states are making that decision, but we’re allowing states to make that decision.”
GOP Congressman Says ‘OK Boomer’ To Top Trump Advisor’s Marijuana Opposition
Photo courtesy of YouTube/White House.



