Recently,
Senator Bernie Sanders unveiled his proposal to
legalize marijuana on a nationwide basis — an homage to what has now been deemed
“Weed Day.”
While
the senator already has unveiled his preparations for criminal justice reform,
he specifically deals with marijuana legalization within his most recent plan and
cites the disproportionate affect its criminalization has had upon minority
communities.
Several
Dem. presidential candidates pledged to legalize marijuana, yet Sanders’ plan
expedites this process through an executive order, which he vows within the initial
100 days in office and cites a change in public support for this type of action
after eleven states legalized recreational marijuana.
According
to the plan, ‘while Congress aggressively must move to eliminate the war on
drugs and undo all of its damage, president Sanders won’t wait for Congress to
act.’
The
plan continues:
Under
the plan, not only will Sanders take executive action to legalize cannabis by extracting
it from the Controlled Substance Act, he’ll expunge past convictions of
marijuana-associated offenses, and make sure that War on Drugs’ victims aren’t passed
over by the marijuana industry.
Bernie
promises that his administration is going to ‘evaluate all marijuana
convictions … for re-sentencing and expungement’ as well as expunge every past
conviction utilizing the California model. Also, he vows that the tax revenue that
is generated by legalized marijuana is going to go right toward communities
that are ‘hit the hardest by the War on Drugs.’
Sanders
has plans to use billions of dollars in generated revenue to make grant
programs with the goal of helping minority communities, which includes the development
of a $20B grant program ‘inside the Minority Business Development Agency to offer
grants to entrepreneurs of color who continually face discrimination in accessibility
to capital’ and an additional $10B grant program which would ‘concentrate on
businesses which are at least 51 percent controlled or owned by the ones in
disproportionately affected regions or people who’ve been convicted of or
arrested for marijuana offenses.’
Sanders
also plans to provide previously incarcerated people accessibility to free job
training ‘at apprenticeship programs and trade schools associated with
marijuana companies.’
In
addition, the socialist’s plan addresses concerns about the “Big Tobacco”
industry, which Sanders ensures won’t infiltrate the marijuana marketplace.
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