Interviews during 2017-2019: on Drugs
Jo Jorgensen:
End laws against victimless crimes, including drug laws
Q: How would you address the overcrowding of jails?A: We must end all laws against victimless crimes, including drug prohibition, which causes far more problems than it solves, overcrowds our prisons, and clogs our criminal justice system.
If there is no victim, there is no crime. On Day 1 of my presidency, I will pardon and free all nonviolent drug offenders who have harmed no one.
Source: AFA iVoterGuide on 2020 presidential hopefuls
Nov 3, 2020
Jo Jorgensen:
Legalize marijuana; end war on drugs
Q: Decriminalize marijuana or keep illegal?Jo Jorgensen: Legalize marijuana. Decriminalize all drug use. Pardon all victimless federal drug-law prisoners. End "war on drugs."
Howie Hawkins: Legalize. Supports "federal legislation to legalize, tax,
and regulate marijuana."
Joe Biden: Decriminalize use. Don't interfere with states. But doesn't support full federal legalization.
Donald Trump: Keep illegal. Proposed removing medical marijuana protections.
Source: CampusElect on 2020 presidential hopefuls
Aug 30, 2020
Kanye West:
Marijuana should be free
West invited a couple of young women from the audience to speak on stage about issues that concerned them, such as education inequity and police brutality.
West also said that marijuana "should be free" and took questions from the audience before the hour-long event ended.
Source: ABC This Week coverage of 2020 presidential hopefuls
Jul 20, 2020
Howie Hawkins:
End war on drugs: for legalization, treatment of abuse
Greens call for an end to the "war on drugs", legalization of drugs and for treating drug abuse as a health issue. The "war on drugs" has been an ill-conceived program that has wasted billions
of dollars misdirecting law enforcement resources away from apprehending and prosecuting violent criminals, while crowding our prisons with non-violent drug offenders and disproportionately criminalizing youth of color.
Source: Green Party Platform adopted by 2020 presidential hopeful
Jul 12, 2020
Pete Buttigieg:
Marijuana is personal responsibility issue; move to legalize
Buttigieg says the U.S. should be working towards legalizing recreational marijuana, because of all the problems associated with current marijuana policy. This should be more of a personal responsibility issue, he argues. "You look at rates of
incarceration, you look at the racial disparity that is attached to whether somebody is likely to experience incarceration as a consequence of a non-violent drug offense and all of it points us in the same direction," Buttigieg said.
Source: Indianapolis Star on 2020 presidential hopefuls
May 6, 2019
Donald Trump:
Opposed allowing vets access to legal cannabis
The House Veterans' Affairs Committee held a hearing on three bills. One bill would allow VA healthcare providers to write state-legal medical cannabis recommendations for veterans who qualify. A separate bill would direct the
VA to conduct a clinical study on the risks and benefits of medical marijuana. A third would prevent the VA from stripping veterans of their benefits because they consume state-legal cannabis.
The Trump administration opposed all three.
Not too long ago, veterans could lose their lifelong military benefits if a drug test turned up evidence of cannabis use, no matter how legal.
The VA reformed that policy in late 2017--but it's a policy subject to easy change, not a protection codified by law. President Trump opposes codifying it into law.
Source: Bruce Barcott in Leafly.com on 2020 presidential hopefuls
May 2, 2019
Beto O`Rourke:
1998 drunk driving: arresting officers say he tried to flee
The former police officer who arrested Beto O'Rourke for driving drunk in 1998, along with the sergeant who signed the incident report, both say they believe now what they reported at the time: that O'Rourke tried to leave the scene of the wreck he
caused.O'Rourke admits he was intoxicated and says there is no justification for his actions, but he has denied that he tried to flee. "Beto's DWI is something he has long publicly and openly addressed over the last 20 years at town halls, on the
debate stage, during interviews and in Op-Eds, calling it a serious mistake for which there is no excuse," said an O'Rourke spokesman. "This has been widely and repeatedly reported on."
[The original police report asserted], "The defendant/driver
then attempted to leave the scene. The [police officer] then turned on his over head lights to warn oncoming traffic & to try to get the defendant to stop. When I made contact with the driver, defendant was unable to be understood due to slurred speech."
Source: Texas Tribune on 2020 presidential hopefuls
Apr 24, 2019
Andrew Yang:
Decriminalize opiates & marijuana, but not cocaine
Q: What about legalizing pot?A: If we just catch you with a quantity that suggests that you're just using it personally, then instead of referring you to a jail cell, we refer you to treatment. We need to decriminalize opiates for personal use. I'm
also for the legalization of cannabis. We need to remove that from the federal controlled substance.
Q: What about cocaine?
A: Cocaine would not be on the list of substances I would engage in this, because the addiction has very different features.
Source: CNN Town Hall: 2020 presidential hopefuls
Apr 14, 2019
Julian Castro:
Crack down on traffickers of dangerous drugs like fentanyl
I would make sure we have harsh penalties against people who traffic in fentanyl and similar drugs. We need to make smart investments in our ports of entry so that we can crack down further on the trafficking of fentanyl and other drugs.
One thing that I believe we should do is to better invest in security at our ports of entry so that we can do things like catch more of the fentanyl that is coming through.
Source: CNN Town Hall: 2020 presidential hopefuls
Apr 11, 2019
Julian Castro:
Legalize and regulate marijuana; expunge criminal records
I actually support the legalization of marijuana. It's going to be regulated, right? People are not going to be able to do whatever they want, but a well-regulated, legalized system of marijuana,
I think, makes sense. On top of that, we need to go back and expunge the records of people who were imprisoned because of using marijuana.
Source: CNN Town Hall: 2020 presidential hopefuls
Apr 11, 2019
Jay Inslee:
Opposed marijuana legalization; now sees it as success
I actually did not support the initiative when it came up several years ago because I was concerned about youthful usage -- but what we have found is that those fears have not come to pass. We have not had adverse health results with our young people.
We've not had ramping criminality in the distribution of marijuana. And it has been helpful by providing about $700 million of revenue so that we can help the health of our children in schools for our children.
It's time for the United States to decriminalize and legalize marijuana. The drug war has been one of the elements of such racial disparities in our judicial system.
That's one of the reasons I was the first governor to offer pardons to over 3,000 people with marijuana convictions because the drug war has resulted in too much racial disparity.
Source: CNN Town Hall: 2020 presidential hopefuls
Apr 10, 2019
Cory Booker:
Decriminalize marijuana; expunge past criminal records
In this climate where many states are moving to legalize marijuana, I have a lot of frustrations. We fundamentally have different laws in this country that are treating people differently. There are still marijuana arrests. In 2017, there were more
marijuana arrests in this country than all violent crime arrests combined. And marijuana enforcement is disproportionately impacting black and brown communities. There is no difference in America between using and even selling marijuana between
blacks and whites. But if you're African American in this country, you're almost four times more likely to be arrested for that. That's why I fast put a bill into the Senate called the Marijuana Justice Act, which is about decriminalizing marijuana on
the federal level, letting the states do what they want, but very importantly in the same breath, we've got to talk about expunging the records of everyone who is still suffering.
Source: CNN Town Hall: 2020 presidential hopefuls
Mar 27, 2019
John Hickenlooper:
Marijuana legalization works, but leave it to states
On marijuana legalization: I was opposed to it originally. We were worried about teenage consumption going up. We were worried about the risks of people driving while high. Most of our fears haven't come true. We haven't seen a spike in consumption.
It's so much better than the old system when we sent millions of kids to prison, most of them kids of color, and not only imprisoned them, but made them felons, made already difficult lives much, much harder.I would not ask the federal government to
legalize it for everyone. But I think where states do the federal government should get out of the way and allow them to be able to get banking, which we can't legally get in Colorado, so everything is supposed to go by cash. My dream would be the
federal government to make sure that the Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration regulate whether pesticides are used, that we get all the legal barriers to doing medical research around marijuana [removed].
Source: CNN Town Hall: 2020 presidential hopefuls
Mar 20, 2019
Amy Klobuchar:
Reduce sentences for non-violent drug offenders
One of the things that we are starting to resolve is the federal drug sentences. I was a sponsor of the FIRST STEP Act, a co-sponsor. That was the important law that just passed on a bipartisan basis that brought down the federal drug sentences,
which were much higher than the local drug sentences for nonviolent offenders. It's called the FIRST STEP Act because there has to be a second step act.
Source: CNN State of the Union 2019 on 2020 Presidential hopefuls
Mar 17, 2019
Amy Klobuchar:
Opioid companies should fund addiction treatment
There is just not enough funding going into addiction. I see it as a money saver in the long haul, because so many times when people get hooked, they end up committing crimes.Why don't we pay for it by getting money from the very drug companies that
got people addicted in the first place? We have a bill right now, the LifeBOAT Act, where we put a fee on those companies that are selling the opioids to help pay for treatment. I'd like to see the Trump administration get behind that.
Source: CNN Town Hall: 2020 presidential hopefuls
Feb 18, 2019
Bill Weld:
Accept benefits of cannabis; allow vets and seniors to use
Veterans should be permitted to receive health care from hospitals and health care providers outside the exclusive network of V.A. hospitals. They should be permitted to use cannabis for the relief of post-traumatic stress disorder without losing
their veteran's benefits, as is the case under current V.A. law. The elderly must be permitted to have full access to non-addictive drugs which are useful for the relief of pain, including cannabis and CBD.
Source: Speech in New Hampshire by 2020 presidential hopefuls
Feb 15, 2019
Cory Booker:
Legalize marijuana federally, plus state incentives
Kamala Harris' call for legalization of marijuana follow the lead of multiple others. Sen. Cory Booker, a NJ Democrat and one of Harris' top opponents for the party's nomination, introduced a bill in 2017 that would both legalize marijuana use at a
federal level & encourage states to legalize it locally through incentives. By attaching the issue to himself early on, Booker--one of the early top prospects for the Democrats in 2020--all but forced contenders to take a stance on legalizing marijuana.
Source: Politico.com, "Legalization," on 2020 presidential hopefuls
Feb 11, 2019
Kamala Harris:
Legalize marijuana: it gives a lot of people joy
Sen. Kamala Harris called for the legalization of marijuana at a federal level: "Half my family's from Jamaica," the California Democrat said, laughing when asked to respond to those who think she's opposed to legalizing recreational use of the
drug. "Are you kidding me?"Harris also said she smoked a joint in college. "And I inhaled," she added, joking in reference to President Bill Clinton's comments on the campaign trail in 1992 that he smoked marijuana but "didn't inhale it."
When asked if she would smoke again if the federal government were to legalize the recreational use of the drug, Harris laughed and replied: "Listen, I think it gives a lot of people joy. And we need more joy."
Harris said legalization would have to come with some caveats, emphasizing a need for research on the effects of marijuana on the developing brain and a means for regulating use of the drug while driving.
Source: Politico.com, "Legalization," on 2020 presidential hopefuls
Feb 11, 2019
Beto O`Rourke:
Treat drug abuse as public health issue, not criminal
We lose 70,000 of our fellow Americans to drug overdose deaths. We can treat this as a criminal justice issue or show real compassion and treat it as a public health issue. I want to have smart drug control policy. I want to acknowledge that we have the
largest prison population per capita on the face of the planet, many serving time for possession of a substance that is perfectly legal or decriminalized or medicinalized in more than half the states in the union.
I don't want to legalize narcotics. I do think we should end the prohibition on marijuana and effectively control and regulate its sale and make sure those
who need it for medicinal purposes are able to obtain it through a prescription from their doctor.
Source: CNN Town Hall: 2020 presidential hopefuls
Oct 18, 2018
Joe Biden:
1981: Militarized domestic police against drugs
Biden can also take partial credit for the militarization of domestic law enforcement. Biden's vote for the 1981 Military Cooperation with Law Enforcement Officials Act permitted the military to work with police on drug cases.
Biden was also a major proponent of the Byrne grant and Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) programs, which in practice created more heavily armed police forces increasingly focused on locking up people for minor drug crimes.
Source: Jacobin Magazine on 2020 presidential hopefuls
Aug 2, 2018
John Kasich:
Make low-level drug use a misdemeanor; treatment not prison
Gov. John Kasich said he is leaning toward supporting a ballot issue to prevent many low-level drug use and possession offenders from being sent to state prisons. Kasich signaled his potential support for Issue 1 on the Nov. 6 ballot, a constitutional
amendment that would convert low-level drug use and possession felonies to first-degree misdemeanors that would divert offenders out of prison to addiction treatment. It also could lead to the release of those now imprisoned in state facilities for
minor drug offenses."It's important for low-level offenders to not be in the prison system," the second-term Republican governor said, adding he wants to study the issue further. "We won the battle, but not the war. It's not going to be won for a
long time," Kasich said, referring to a 30-percent drop in prescribed doses of opioid painkillers--a "gateway" to heroin and fentanyl--and a six-year low in the number of deaths from prescribed drugs.
Source: The Columbus Dispatch on 2020 presidential hopefuls
Aug 1, 2018
John Hickenlooper:
Failed War on Drugs paved way for pot legalization
[On marijuana legalization]: "Let's face it, the War on Drugs was a disaster. It may be well intentioned
but it sent millions of kids to prison, gave them felonies often times when they had no violent crimes. I was against this, but I can see why so many people supported it."
Source: The Atlantic, "Legalization," on 2020 presidential hopefuls
Jul 1, 2014
Lincoln Chafee:
Lobbied DEA to reclassify marijuana for medical use
If you weren't told Chafee had been a Republican and just looked at all of his positions, you'd think he was a Democrat anyway (pro-choice, pro-gun control, pro-minimum wage increases, and eventually pro-Barack Obama).
He has lobbied the Drug Enforcement Agency to reclassify marijuana so that doctors could legally prescribe it as medication.
Source: Reason magazine on 2020 presidential hopefuls
Aug 23, 1999
Lincoln Chafee:
Not proud of trying cocaine as college student
Referring to the media's ''dogged'' pursuit of George W. Bush's possible drug use, the younger Chafee decided to be forthcoming with his own cocaine use when asked about it. ''I had three choices: lie, which was not an option, or evade it and
receive the consequences of that, or be honest. And I chose to be honest,'' Chafee said. Chafee said he tried cocaine several times around 1974, as a student at Brown University. ''It's not something I'm proud of,'' Chafee said.
Source: USA Today on 2020 presidential hopefuls
Aug 23, 1999
Page last updated: Nov 01, 2021