Why Cory Booker Cares So Much About Legal Weed

[babylonsister]

May 2, 2019 11:17AM ET
Why Cory Booker Cares So Much About Legal Weed
In an exclusive interview, the 2020 candidate opens up about his cannabis crusade and why it’s “bigger than presidential politics”
By Tim Dickinson


"I get angry when I see people taking just one step — legalizing marijuana — without doing anything to address past harms," says Sen. Cory Booker

In the fight to legalize pot, enthusiasts have largely pointed to the unjust demonization of the drug itself. Weed is no more harmful than alcohol, the argument goes, so why not tax it and regulate it the same way? That logic has carried the day in nearly a dozen pot-legal states from Alaska to California to Maine.

But when Cory Booker, the New Jersey senator and 2020 presidential candidate, looks at the question of legalizing cannabis, he sees the stakes very differently. For Booker, the real problem is the unjust enforcement of marijuana laws — against black and brown Americans, whose usage rates are no different than their white counterparts but who are arrested at astronomically higher rates.

As Congress begins to seriously grapple with the federal legalization of cannabis, Booker has introduced, with Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA), the Marijuana Justice Act. The bill would not simply remove marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act. It would also create a mechanism to expunge the criminal records of many pot offenders and create a fund of at least $500 million a year to repair the damage done to communities that have been unjustly targeted. Finally, it would strip federal money from states that continue to prohibit pot if they do not enforce their laws equitably along racial and class lines.

“Booker and Lee single-handedly shifted the conversation,” says Queen Adesuyi, policy coordinator for the D.C. office of the Drug Policy Alliance. “The Marijuana Justice Act is the first bill that deschedules marijuana that also acknowledges the harm that prohibition has done to communities of color and low income communities — connecting marijuana reform to criminal justice reform and racial justice.”

more...

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/2020-cory-booker-legal-weed-pot-cannabis-why-826232/

[Honeycombe8]

1. Yes, to expunging the records.

No, to giving away money to certain communities. That would be impossible and costly to determine. How does one determine if a community was "unjustly targeted"? How does one determine which communities to look at? What is the definition of "unjust targeting"? Who makes the determinations?

This sounds to me more like a way to funnel money to certain communities for a variety of reasons. Harris has mentioned giving money to "certain communities" as she put it, for other reasons.

If someone was charged with a drug crime for marijuana, that was a legal charge for the time. But expunging the record seems fair, since it affects a person's ability to get employment.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

2. Look at the disaster in Canada when they legalized weed ...

... nothing happened.

('cept supply shortages due to demand)

Note: legislation in Canada to expunge records is making its way.

HOUSE OF COMMONS OF CANADA
BILL C-93
An Act to provide no-cost, expedited record suspensions for simple possession of cannabis
FIRST READING, March 1, 2019
MINISTER OF PUBLIC SAFETY AND EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS
90891

SUMMARY
This enactment amends the Criminal Records Act to, among other things, allow persons who have been convicted under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, the Narcotic Control Act and the National Defence Act only of simple possession of cannabis offences committed before October 17, 2018 to apply for a record suspension without being subject to the period required by the Criminal Records Act for other offences or to the fee that is otherwise payable in applying for a suspension.

[bigbrother05]

3. Selective enforcement is the main tool used to oppress

Last edited Fri May 3, 2019, 10:19 AM - Edit history (1)

All drug laws have been wielded this way.

edit for grammar

[aikoaiko]

4. I think to be against legalizing weed is racist stance

Some folks may not realize it, but it is the redlining of our generation.