Pubdate: Wed, 23 Mar 2016
Source: Colorado Springs Independent (CO)
Column: Cannabiz
Copyright: 2016 Colorado Springs Independent
Contact:  http://www.csindy.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1536
Author: Nat Stein

DOES BERNIE'S STANCE ON LEGALIZATION MATTER?

Of all the questions lingering over Colorado's burgeoning pot 
industry, perhaps none is weightier than who will control federal 
drug enforcement as of January 2017. How Americans vote on the top of 
the ticket in the November election could be make-or-break for the 
future of legal weed in the Centennial State. And of all the 
remaining candidates, only one appears a reliable ally to the 
legalization movement. (Don't bother sitting down, this will not be a 
shocker.) It's the democratic socialist from Vermont, Sen. Bernie Sanders.

Now, the full extent to which the cannabis community will mobilize 
for Bernie remains to be seen. Kyle Sherman, CEO of cannabis software 
startup Flowhub, says the choice this election season is clear for 
him and his colleagues. But they're taking the wait-and-see approach.

"Bernie Sanders seems to have the support of most cannabis 
enthusiasts, given his pro-drug law reform platform, but it doesn't 
seem like there'll be all that much activity in support of him as a 
candidate unless he becomes the Democratic nominee," Sherman says. 
"Once the candidates for each party have been announced, however, my 
company will be launching a GOTV campaign centered around cannabis as 
a primary issue, and I hope others in the space take similar steps."

Other industry leaders are wasting no time organizing and empowering 
the cannabis community to get their interests represented at the 
highest level of government.

Hillary Clinton, who could end up the Democratic nominee, is 
tentative and vague on the topic. In November, at a town hall in 
South Carolina, the former secretary of state told a predominantly 
black audience that she supports medical marijuana. "I want to move 
from Schedule 1 to Schedule 2 so researchers can research what's the 
best way to use it, dosage, how does it work with other medications," 
Clinton added. (In Schedule 2, marijuana would keep company with 
cocaine and methamphetamine.) A month earlier, she had declined to 
say whether she supports states' right to legalize. During her first 
presidential bid in 2007, Clinton said flat out that "I don't think 
we should decriminalize [marijuana]."

So her position is "ever-evolving" (pragmatist-speak for: "Let's see 
where public opinion goes.")

Sanders, to be fair, isn't as gung-ho as he could be.

"When I was mayor of the town of Burlington [Vermont]," the senator 
told Katie Couric last year, "which has a large university, and one 
or two of the kids were smoking marijuana, we suspect, we didn't 
arrest too many people for marijuana." But he himself doesn't 
partake. In the same interview he joked about being "the only person 
who didn't get high in the Sixties" before clarifying: "I smoked 
marijuana twice, and it didn't quite work for me. It's not my thing, 
but it is the thing of a whole lot of people."

Warren Gill, regional press secretary for the Sanders campaign, says, 
"It's the whole package [that's] drawing a lot of folks to our side. 
You know, the U.S. has more people in jail today than any other 
country, and we are spending about $80 billion a year to lock people 
up. That's just obscene, and I think our supporters realize how wrong 
it is that hundreds of thousands of Americans have a criminal record 
for smoking marijuana, but not one major Wall Street executive has 
been prosecuted after causing the near collapse of our entire economy."

The "single-issue voter" may indeed be the unicorn of electoral 
politics (nonexistent, though subject to frequent speculation).

"It's not my No. 1 issue, but the decriminalization of drugs in 
general is very important," says Hazen Garcia, a local businessman in 
his 30s who's feeling the Bern. "Addicts and users deserve treatment, 
not incarceration."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom