How Elizabeth Warren would legalize marijuana

[left-of-center2012]

Sen. Elizabeth Warren said she would reduce federal funding to states that refuse to legalize marijuana and prevent “Big Tobacco“ from dominating the burgeoning industry in her wide-ranging plan to overhaul the country’s drug laws, which she announced Sunday in Denver.

Warren‘s plan is not as detailed and aggressive as the blueprint outlined by Sen. Bernie Sanders, the frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination, who eviscerated the field in Saturday’s Nevada caucuses. But she’s vowing to fill her administration with legalization supporters, immediately begin making dramatic changes to federal drug policies and protect state-legal marijuana markets.

Warren's plan would not force states to legalize cannabis. But it would reduce federal funding for law enforcement in states that decide not to legalize cannabis if the racial inequities in arrest rates for marijuana do not improve.

Unlike Sanders, who made headlines when he claimed he would legalize cannabis on his first day in office, Warren takes a different route. She promises to appoint people to lead the Department of Justice, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Food and Drug Administration and the Office of National Drug Control Policy who support marijuana legalization and the rest of her criminal justice agenda.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/23/warren-marijuana-tobacco-plan-2020-116948