Interviews during 2018-2020: on Drugs
John Hickenlooper:
As teen, grew his own marijuana before it was legal
One fun thing about John Hickenlooper: - Once opposed to the idea of legalization of marijuana in Colorado, he has come around to it.
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He wrote in his memoir that when he was young he once tried to grow weed outside his bedroom window in Pennsylvania.
Source: Axios.com on 2020 Democratic primary
Apr 22, 2019
Beto O`Rourke:
Arrested for drunk driving at age 25; license suspended
Beto was 25 when he was arrested for drunk driving, an incident that would become a flash point in his campaign against Ted Cruz, and will likely become one again in a presidential race.The police report describes O'Rourke driving at high speed and
sideswiping a truck going in the same direction, then jumping the median into the oncoming lane at about two in the morning. According to a police witness, he tried to drive away from the scene of the accident. O'Rourke maintains that this isn't true.
O'Rourke was taking his date, named Michelle, back to her home in Las Cruces when the accident happened. He failed a sobriety test and was handcuffed. In his telling, he was pathetic but nonetheless chivalrous: When police left his friend in
a gas-station parking lot, a handcuffed O'Rourke asked them to take cash out of his jeans so she could get home. His father posted bail. His license was suspended, and he had to take a bus to his job working at his mom's furniture store.
Source: Joe Hagan in Vanity Fair on 2020 Democratic primary
Mar 13, 2019
Beto O`Rourke:
Dealing Drugs and Death: 2011 call for legalization
In 2011, O'Rourke teamed up with a fellow council member, Susie Byrd, to publish a political tract titled "Dealing Drugs and Death," arguing for drug legalization to curtail the cartel wars that had de-stabilized the border. The tract was nobody's idea
of a great political move--drug legalization was still on the fringes of mainstream politics in 2011--but it set the stage for a run for Congress against the eight-term incumbent, Silvestre Reyes, a former border-patrol guard who supported the
War on Drugs and made his name advocating for border fencing. The odds against beating an incumbent were long, but O'Rourke and his new campaign manager, David Wysong, a local health-care executive who had never run a congressional campaign, tabulated
the voter turnout they would need to win--which for O'Rourke translated to numbers of doors he needed to knock on. "How many doors? How many people behind each door?" Wysong recalls.
Source: Joe Hagan in Vanity Fair on 2020 Democratic primary
Mar 13, 2019
Joe Biden:
Harsh sentences for crack were a mistake; worked to rectify
Biden said, "I haven't always been right. I know we haven't always gotten things right, but I've always tried." He highlighted his later work with Pres. Obama to address the sentencing disparity for crack versus powder cocaine, saying, "It was a big
mistake when it was made," he said at the MLK breakfast. "We thought, we were told by the experts, that crack you never go back, it was somehow fundamentally different. It's not different. But it's trapped an entire generation."
Source: CNN KFile, "Predators," on 2020 Democratic primary
Mar 7, 2019
Tulsi Gabbard:
Let states legalize marijuana; non-user supports free choice
Gabbard on marijuana legalization: "The fact that marijuana's still a Schedule I drug is unacceptable in the harm that it is causing to the people of our country and to taxpayers as well. The impact this has on individuals, potentially leading to
criminal records that impact them, their families, their ability to get a job, housing, financial aid for college--the impacts of this are great. That's not to speak of the impact on states, small businesses and banks in those states that have legalized
some level of marijuana."She said that "freedom of choice" is a key reason she has focused so much on cannabis during her time on Capitol Hill. "I don't smoke marijuana. I never have," she said. "But I believe firmly in every person's freedom to make
their own choices, and that people should not be thrown in jail and incarcerated or made into criminals for choosing to smoke marijuana whether it be for medicinal and non-medicinal purposes."
Source: Forbes Magazine "Marijuana Nexus" on 2020 Democratic primary
Mar 7, 2019
John Hickenlooper:
Supports states permitting marijuana, not federal reform
Hickenlooper advocated for federal reforms to marijuana but said he does not advocate for blanket laws to legalize marijuana nationally. "I don't think the federal government should come in and tell every state it should be legalized."
Hickenlooper, who originally opposed legalizing the drug in his state, said "the things I feared six years ago have not come to pass." "The federal government should reclassify marijuana so it's not a schedule I narcotic," Hickenlooper said.
The former governor also argued for banking reforms so that businesses handling marijuana money "don't have to do everything in cash."
However, he stopped short of fully endorsing a measure to legalize marijuana at the federal level and did not address calls to expunge the criminal records of those charged with possession.
Source: The Hill e-zine on 2020 Democratic primary
Mar 6, 2019
Joe Biden:
Long record of opposing marijuana legalization
Biden remains one of very few prominent Democrats who've still failed to endorse cannabis legalization at the federal level. The last time he substantively addressed legalization appears to be 2010, in an ABC News interview: "There's
a difference between sending someone to jail for a few ounces and legalizing it," he said. "The punishment should fit the crime. But I think legalization is a mistake. I still believe [marijuana] is a gateway drug."
Source: David Bienenstock in Leafly.com on 2020 Democratic primary
Feb 26, 2019
Joe Biden:
Forbid government study of legalization
In 1996, Biden voted for a bill that required: "The Director shall ensure that no Federal funds appropriated to the Office of National Drug Control Policy shall be expended for any study or contract relating to the legalization
(for a medical use or any other use) of a substance listed in schedule I of section 202 of the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 812) and take such actions as necessary to oppose any attempt to legalize the use of [such] a substance (in any form)."
Source: David Bienenstock in Leafly.com on 2020 Democratic primary
Feb 26, 2019
Beto O`Rourke:
End prohibition on marijuana, expunge records of possessors
Second, we need to end the failed war on drugs that has long been a war on people, waged on some people over other people. Who is going to be the last man--more likely than not a black man--to languish behind bars for possessing or using marijuana
when it is legal in more than half of the states in this country? We should end the federal prohibition on marijuana and expunge the records of those who were locked away for possessing it
Source: O'Rourke OpEd in Houston Chronicle: 2020 Democratic primary
Aug 27, 2018
Joe Biden:
1989: Bush didn't go far enough in War on Drugs
In September 1989, George H. W. Bush delivered a speech outlining his National Drug Control Strategy, in which he called for harsher punishments for drug dealers, nearly $1.5 billion toward drug-related law enforcement, and "more prisons, more jails,
more courts, more prosecutors" at every level throughout the country. "Quite frankly, the President's plan is not tough enough, bold enough, or imaginative enough to meet the crisis at hand,"
Biden said in a televised response to Bush's speech. "In a nutshell, the President's plan does not include enough police officers to catch the violent thugs, enough prosecutors to convict them,
enough judges to sentence them, or enough prison cells to put them away for a long time."
Source: Jacobin Magazine on 2020 Democratic primary
Aug 9, 2018
Joe Biden:
Proud of backing tough drug laws & penalties
Biden would later brag in the Senate that Congress passed a law sending anyone caught with a rock of cocaine the size of a quarter to jail for a minimum of five years. Biden went on to take credit for a legislative change allowing the
government to effectively rob anyone caught dealing drugs, through the policy of civil asset forfeiture, and demanded to know why the Bush administration hadn't sentenced more drug dealers to life in prison or death.
Source: Jacobin Magazine on 2020 Democratic primary
Aug 9, 2018
Michael Bennet:
Let states experiment with marijuana; address racial issues
What we're having right now is a tremendous experiment in federalism, and that's what we should continue to do. The states should look at this and ultimately we should decide as a country what we want to do, but I don't know that we're there yet.
I think the sentencing disparities suggest important issues that have to be addressed.
Source: The Atlantic, "Immigration," on 2020 Democratic primary
Jan 24, 2018
Page last updated: Dec 01, 2021