A marijuana plant matures at a growing facility in Denver. (Photo: Brennan Linsley/AP/File)
Where the 2016 presidential candidates stand on marijuana
It’s April 20th or 4/20, a day when marijuana enthusiasts gather, legally or otherwise, to celebrate the joys of smoking pot — a sort of stoner Fourth of July.
Last year, President Barack Obama gave weed activists a boost when he said he considers marijuana no more dangerous than alcohol.
“As has been well documented, I smoked pot as a kid, and I view it as a bad habit and a vice, not very different from the cigarettes that I smoked as a young person up through a big chunk of my adult life,“ Obama told the New Yorker after Colorado’s historic legalization of recreational marijuana. "I don’t think it is more dangerous than alcohol.”
So where does the crop of current and possible 2016 presidential candidates stand on the issue of marijuana?
<FIGURE data-reactid=".0.$cover-mosaic-transition-group.$=1$cover-mosaic-0:0.$article-116920750826.0:$Pos-r.$article-inner-container.$inset-container.$grid-template.0.$col-left.$content.$grid-content.0.1.1.$text-body.0.0.$figure-14">
</FIGURE>Jeb Bush, former Florida governor
• Ever smoke marijuana? Yes.
• Position on pot: Opposes legalization of both recreational and medical marijuana.
“I smoked marijuana when I was at Andover,” Bush told the Boston Globe in an interview earlier this year. “It was pretty common.”
But the former Florida governor has taken a hard-line approach when it comes to legalization. Last fall, Bush released a statement urging Florida voters to reject a ballot initiative that would have legalized medical marijuana in the Sunshine State.
"Allowing large-scale, marijuana operations to take root across Florida, under the guise of using it for medicinal purposes, runs counter” to efforts to make Florida “a world-class location to start or run a business, a family-friendly destination for tourism and a desirable place to raise a family or retire,” Bush said.
A majority of Florida voters (57 percent) disagreed, but the measure fell short of the 60 percent approval it needed to pass.
Bush listens to a reporter’s question in Jackson, Miss., April 16, 2015. (Photo: Rogelio V. Solis/AP)
<FIGURE data-reactid=".0.$cover-mosaic-transition-group.$=1$cover-mosaic-0:0.$article-116920750826.0:$Pos-r.$article-inner-container.$inset-container.$grid-template.0.$col-left.$content.$grid-content.0.1.1.$text-body.0.0.$figure-30">
</FIGURE>Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul
• Ever smoke marijuana? Sounds like it.
• Position on pot: Supports decriminalization.
Paul is, perhaps, the most vocal among the 2016 candidates when it comes to weed.
Last month, Paul joined Democratic Sens. Cory Booker and Kirsten Gillibrand in introducing an historic bipartisan bill that would end the federal ban on medical marijuana, allowing “patients, doctors and businesses in states that have already passed medical marijuana laws to participate in those programs without fear of federal prosecution.”
In an interview with Yahoo News’ Katie Couric, Paul called Bush out for his opposition to Florida’s medical marijuana initiative.
“If you got MS in Florida, Jeb Bush voted to put you in jail if you go to a local drug store and get medical marijuana,” Paul said. “Yet he was doing it for recreational purposes and it’s a different standard for him, because he was from a very wealthy family going to a wealthy school and he got off scot-free.”
As for his own use?
“Let’s just say I wasn’t a choir boy when I was in college,” Paul said in an interview with WHAS-TV. “I can recognize that kids make mistakes, and I can say that I made mistakes when I was a kid.”
Paul talks with patrons during a campaign stop at a diner in Merrimack, N.H., April 18, 2015. (Photo: Charles Krupa/AP)
<FIGURE data-reactid=".0.$cover-mosaic-transition-group.$=1$cover-mosaic-0:0.$article-116920750826.0:$Pos-r.$article-inner-container.$inset-container.$grid-template.0.$col-left.$content.$grid-content.0.1.1.$text-body.0.2.$figure-17">
</FIGURE>Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker
• Ever smoke marijuana? No.
• Position on pot: Let states decide.
Last year, Walker signed a bill legalizing cannabidiol, or CBD, an anti-seizure drug that had been outlawed in his state because it contains a small amount of THC, the active chemical ingredient in marijuana.
But Walker still believes marijuana is a “gateway drug” that should remain illegal in Wisconsin, at least for now.“I don’t think you’re going to see anything serious anytime soon here, but if other states did, maybe in the next legislative session there’d be more talk about it,” Walker told Fox 6 News last year. “It may be something that resonates in the future, but I just don’t see any movement for it right now.“
Has Walker ever smoked weed?
"No,” Walker told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “The wildest thing I did in college was have a beer.”
Walker arrives at the Republican Leadership Summit in Nashua, N.H., April 18, 2015. (Photo: Jim Cole/AP)
<FIGURE data-reactid=".0.$cover-mosaic-transition-group.$=1$cover-mosaic-0:0.$article-116920750826.0:$Pos-r.$article-inner-container.$inset-container.$grid-template.0.$col-left.$content.$grid-content.0.1.1.$text-body.0.2.$figure-33">
</FIGURE>Florida Sen. Marco Rubio
• Ever smoke marijuana? “If I tell you that I haven’t, you won’t believe me.“
• Position on pot: Supports limited legalization of medical marijuana.
In a 2014 interview with the Tampa Bay Times, Rubio said he supports legalizing medical marijuana — as long as it doesn’t get you high.
"If there are medicinal uses of marijuana that don’t have the elements that are mind-altering or create the high but do alleviate whatever condition it may be they are trying to alleviate, that is something I would be open to,” he said.
Like Bush, Rubio opposed last year’s ballot initiative that would’ve made medical marijuana legal in Florida.
Rubio has said answering questions about his past use of pot is a lose-lose proposition.
“If I tell you that I haven’t, you won’t believe me,“ Rubio told Fusion in 2014. "And if I tell you that I did, then kids will look up to me and say, ‘Well, I can smoke marijuana because look how he made it. He did alright so I guess I can do it too.‘”
He added: “The bottom line is that it is a substance that alters your mind. Now when I was 17 and 18 and 16, I made dumb decisions as is. I didn’t need the help of marijuana or alcohol to further that.”
Rubio speaks on Capitol Hill, April 14, 2015. (Photo: Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP)
<FIGURE data-reactid=".0.$cover-mosaic-transition-group.$=1$cover-mosaic-0:0.$article-116920750826.0:$Pos-r.$article-inner-container.$inset-container.$grid-template.0.$col-left.$content.$grid-content.0.1.1.$text-body.0.2.$figure-53">
</FIGURE>Texas Sen. Ted Cruz
• Ever smoke marijuana? Yes.
• Position on pot: Let the states decide.
Cruz has shifted positions on the issue of legalization. In 2014, the Texas senator blasted the Obama administration for not interfering with states like Colorado and Washington on weed.
“The Obama administration’s approach to drug policy is to simply announce that across the country, it is going to stop enforcing certain drug laws,” Cruz told Reason magazine. “Now, that may or may not be a good policy, but I would suggest that should concern anyone — it should even concern libertarians who support that policy outcome — because the idea that the president simply says criminal laws that are on the books, we’re going to ignore [them]. That is a very dangerous precedent.
“Anyone who is concerned about liberty should be concerned about the notion that this president over and over again has asserted the right to pick and choose what laws to follow,” Cruz continued. “That is fundamentally dangerous to the liberty of the people.”
But at the Conservative Political Action Conference in February, Cruz said he supports Colorado’s experiment with legalization.
“If the citizens of Colorado decide they want to go down that road, that’s their prerogative,“ he said. "I personally don’t agree with it, but that’s their right.”
Cruz, himself, smoked pot when he was a teenager.
"Teenagers are often known for their lack of judgment, and Sen. Cruz was no exception,” a Cruz spokesperson told the Daily Mail. “When he was a teenager, he foolishly experimented with marijuana. It was a mistake, and he’s never tried it since.”
Cruz speaks to potential supporters in New Hampshire, April 19, 2015. (Photo: Mary Schwalm/AP)
<FIGURE data-reactid=".0.$cover-mosaic-transition-group.$=1$cover-mosaic-0:0.$article-116920750826.0:$Pos-r.$article-inner-container.$inset-container.$grid-template.0.$col-left.$content.$grid-content.0.1.1.$text-body.0.2.$figure-75">
</FIGURE>New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie
• Ever smoke marijuana? “The answer is no.”
• Position on pot: Opposes legalization.
Among all possible GOP presidential candidates, Christie is perhaps the most unwavering in his opposition to marijuana legalization.
“I believe that this is a gateway drug into other more serious drugs,” Christie said on his radio show last year. “I think it sends a wrong message to our kids and I don’t think it makes anybody a better or more productive person.”
The New Jersey governor says his opposition to marijuana is reaffirmed every time he visits Colorado.
“For the people who are enamored with the idea with the income, the tax revenue from this, go to Colorado and see if you want to live there,” Christie said in April 2014, according to Policy Mic. “See if you want to live in a major city in Colorado where there’s head shops popping up on every corner and people flying into your airport just to come and get high. To me, it’s just not the quality of life we want to have here in the state of New Jersey and there’s no tax revenue that’s worth that.”
In 2012, Christie was asked on Twitter if he had ever gotten high.
“The answer is no,” the governor tweeted.
Christie calls on an audience member to during a town hall meeting in New Jersey. (Photo: Julio Cortez/AP/File)
<FIGURE data-reactid=".0.$cover-mosaic-transition-group.$=1$cover-mosaic-0:0.$article-116920750826.0:$Pos-r.$article-inner-container.$inset-container.$grid-template.0.$col-left.$content.$grid-content.0.1.1.$text-body.0.2.$figure-95">
</FIGURE>Rick Perry, former Texas governor
• Ever smoke marijuana? “No, thank God!”
• Position on pot: Supports decriminalization.
In a 2014 appearance on “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” Perry said he supports decriminalization.
“You don’t want to ruin a kid’s life for having a joint,” the then-governor said.
But when he was asked if he’d ever smoked marijuana himself, Perry responded, “No, thank God!”
Paul talks with patrons during a campaign stop at a diner in Merrimack, N.H., April 18, 2015. (Photo: Charles Krupa/AP)
<FIGURE data-reactid=".0.$cover-mosaic-transition-group.$=1$cover-mosaic-0:0.$article-116920750826.0:$Pos-r.$article-inner-container.$inset-container.$grid-template.0.$col-left.$content.$grid-content.0.1.1.$text-body.0.2.$figure-109">
</FIGURE>Martin O'Malley, former Maryland governor
• Ever smoke marijuana? Unclear.
• Position on pot: Supports decriminalization.
Last year, O'Malley signed into law a bill decriminalizes possession of 10 grams or less of marijuana in Maryland.
“As a young prosecutor, I once thought that decriminalizing the possession of marijuana might undermine the public will necessary to combat drug violence and improve public safety,” O’Malley said in a statement. “I now think that [it] is an acknowledgment of the low priority that our courts, our prosecutors, our police and the vast majority of citizens already attach to this transgression of public order and public health.”
O'Malley, though, said he was “not much in favor” of legalizing marijuana for recreational use.
O'Malley speaks at a Democratic fundraiser in Iowa, April 9, 2015. (Photo: Charlie Neibergall/AP)
<FIGURE data-reactid=".0.$cover-mosaic-transition-group.$=1$cover-mosaic-0:0.$article-116920750826.0:$Pos-r.$article-inner-container.$inset-container.$grid-template.0.$col-left.$content.$grid-content.0.1.1.$text-body.0.2.$figure-123">
</FIGURE>Hillary Clinton, former secretary of state
• Ever smoke marijuana? No.
• Position on pot: Supports medical marijuana “under appropriate circumstances.”
While her husband uttered the most infamous response to the pot question (“I didn’t inhale”) in American political history, Hillary Clinton says she’s never tried marijuana.
“I didn’t do it when I was young, I’m not going to start now,” Clinton told CNN last year.
On medical marijuana, the former secretary said it “should be available under appropriate circumstances” but more research is needed.
“I think we need to be very clear about the benefits of marijuana use for medicinal purposes,” she said. “ I don’t think we’ve done enough research yet.”
On legalization of recreational weed, Clinton says she wants to see how it works in Colorado and Washington first.
“States are the laboratories of democracy,” she said. “I want to wait and see what the evidence is.”
Clinton speaks during the first official event of her 2016 campaign in Monticello, Iowa, April 14, 2015. (Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty)
<FIGURE data-reactid=".0.$cover-mosaic-transition-group.$=1$cover-mosaic-0:0.$article-116920750826.0:$Pos-r.$article-inner-container.$inset-container.$grid-template.0.$col-left.$content.$grid-content.0.1.1.$text-body.0.2.$figure-143">
</FIGURE>While the legalization of marijuana may be a campaign issue in 2016, past use of the drug won’t be one.
According to a CBS News poll released Monday, 75 percent of American voters say a candidate’s history of marijuana use would not affect their vote. And 53 percent of Americans say the use of marijuana should be legal — an all-time high.
A audience member Obama about the legalization of Marijuana during a town hall meeting in Kingston, Jamaica, April 9, 2015. (Photo: Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP)
https://www.yahoo.com/politics/2016-candidates-marijuana-positions-legalization-116920750826.html
Where the 2016 presidential candidates stand on marijuana
It’s April 20th or 4/20, a day when marijuana enthusiasts gather, legally or otherwise, to celebrate the joys of smoking pot — a sort of stoner Fourth of July.
Last year, President Barack Obama gave weed activists a boost when he said he considers marijuana no more dangerous than alcohol.
“As has been well documented, I smoked pot as a kid, and I view it as a bad habit and a vice, not very different from the cigarettes that I smoked as a young person up through a big chunk of my adult life,“ Obama told the New Yorker after Colorado’s historic legalization of recreational marijuana. "I don’t think it is more dangerous than alcohol.”
So where does the crop of current and possible 2016 presidential candidates stand on the issue of marijuana?
<FIGURE data-reactid=".0.$cover-mosaic-transition-group.$=1$cover-mosaic-0:0.$article-116920750826.0:$Pos-r.$article-inner-container.$inset-container.$grid-template.0.$col-left.$content.$grid-content.0.1.1.$text-body.0.0.$figure-14">
</FIGURE>Jeb Bush, former Florida governor
• Ever smoke marijuana? Yes.
• Position on pot: Opposes legalization of both recreational and medical marijuana.
“I smoked marijuana when I was at Andover,” Bush told the Boston Globe in an interview earlier this year. “It was pretty common.”
But the former Florida governor has taken a hard-line approach when it comes to legalization. Last fall, Bush released a statement urging Florida voters to reject a ballot initiative that would have legalized medical marijuana in the Sunshine State.
"Allowing large-scale, marijuana operations to take root across Florida, under the guise of using it for medicinal purposes, runs counter” to efforts to make Florida “a world-class location to start or run a business, a family-friendly destination for tourism and a desirable place to raise a family or retire,” Bush said.
A majority of Florida voters (57 percent) disagreed, but the measure fell short of the 60 percent approval it needed to pass.
Bush listens to a reporter’s question in Jackson, Miss., April 16, 2015. (Photo: Rogelio V. Solis/AP)
<FIGURE data-reactid=".0.$cover-mosaic-transition-group.$=1$cover-mosaic-0:0.$article-116920750826.0:$Pos-r.$article-inner-container.$inset-container.$grid-template.0.$col-left.$content.$grid-content.0.1.1.$text-body.0.0.$figure-30">
</FIGURE>Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul
• Ever smoke marijuana? Sounds like it.
• Position on pot: Supports decriminalization.
Paul is, perhaps, the most vocal among the 2016 candidates when it comes to weed.
Last month, Paul joined Democratic Sens. Cory Booker and Kirsten Gillibrand in introducing an historic bipartisan bill that would end the federal ban on medical marijuana, allowing “patients, doctors and businesses in states that have already passed medical marijuana laws to participate in those programs without fear of federal prosecution.”
In an interview with Yahoo News’ Katie Couric, Paul called Bush out for his opposition to Florida’s medical marijuana initiative.
“If you got MS in Florida, Jeb Bush voted to put you in jail if you go to a local drug store and get medical marijuana,” Paul said. “Yet he was doing it for recreational purposes and it’s a different standard for him, because he was from a very wealthy family going to a wealthy school and he got off scot-free.”
As for his own use?
“Let’s just say I wasn’t a choir boy when I was in college,” Paul said in an interview with WHAS-TV. “I can recognize that kids make mistakes, and I can say that I made mistakes when I was a kid.”
Paul talks with patrons during a campaign stop at a diner in Merrimack, N.H., April 18, 2015. (Photo: Charles Krupa/AP)
<FIGURE data-reactid=".0.$cover-mosaic-transition-group.$=1$cover-mosaic-0:0.$article-116920750826.0:$Pos-r.$article-inner-container.$inset-container.$grid-template.0.$col-left.$content.$grid-content.0.1.1.$text-body.0.2.$figure-17">
</FIGURE>Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker
• Ever smoke marijuana? No.
• Position on pot: Let states decide.
Last year, Walker signed a bill legalizing cannabidiol, or CBD, an anti-seizure drug that had been outlawed in his state because it contains a small amount of THC, the active chemical ingredient in marijuana.
But Walker still believes marijuana is a “gateway drug” that should remain illegal in Wisconsin, at least for now.“I don’t think you’re going to see anything serious anytime soon here, but if other states did, maybe in the next legislative session there’d be more talk about it,” Walker told Fox 6 News last year. “It may be something that resonates in the future, but I just don’t see any movement for it right now.“
Has Walker ever smoked weed?
"No,” Walker told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “The wildest thing I did in college was have a beer.”
Walker arrives at the Republican Leadership Summit in Nashua, N.H., April 18, 2015. (Photo: Jim Cole/AP)
<FIGURE data-reactid=".0.$cover-mosaic-transition-group.$=1$cover-mosaic-0:0.$article-116920750826.0:$Pos-r.$article-inner-container.$inset-container.$grid-template.0.$col-left.$content.$grid-content.0.1.1.$text-body.0.2.$figure-33">
</FIGURE>Florida Sen. Marco Rubio
• Ever smoke marijuana? “If I tell you that I haven’t, you won’t believe me.“
• Position on pot: Supports limited legalization of medical marijuana.
In a 2014 interview with the Tampa Bay Times, Rubio said he supports legalizing medical marijuana — as long as it doesn’t get you high.
"If there are medicinal uses of marijuana that don’t have the elements that are mind-altering or create the high but do alleviate whatever condition it may be they are trying to alleviate, that is something I would be open to,” he said.
Like Bush, Rubio opposed last year’s ballot initiative that would’ve made medical marijuana legal in Florida.
Rubio has said answering questions about his past use of pot is a lose-lose proposition.
“If I tell you that I haven’t, you won’t believe me,“ Rubio told Fusion in 2014. "And if I tell you that I did, then kids will look up to me and say, ‘Well, I can smoke marijuana because look how he made it. He did alright so I guess I can do it too.‘”
He added: “The bottom line is that it is a substance that alters your mind. Now when I was 17 and 18 and 16, I made dumb decisions as is. I didn’t need the help of marijuana or alcohol to further that.”
Rubio speaks on Capitol Hill, April 14, 2015. (Photo: Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP)
<FIGURE data-reactid=".0.$cover-mosaic-transition-group.$=1$cover-mosaic-0:0.$article-116920750826.0:$Pos-r.$article-inner-container.$inset-container.$grid-template.0.$col-left.$content.$grid-content.0.1.1.$text-body.0.2.$figure-53">
</FIGURE>Texas Sen. Ted Cruz
• Ever smoke marijuana? Yes.
• Position on pot: Let the states decide.
Cruz has shifted positions on the issue of legalization. In 2014, the Texas senator blasted the Obama administration for not interfering with states like Colorado and Washington on weed.
“The Obama administration’s approach to drug policy is to simply announce that across the country, it is going to stop enforcing certain drug laws,” Cruz told Reason magazine. “Now, that may or may not be a good policy, but I would suggest that should concern anyone — it should even concern libertarians who support that policy outcome — because the idea that the president simply says criminal laws that are on the books, we’re going to ignore [them]. That is a very dangerous precedent.
“Anyone who is concerned about liberty should be concerned about the notion that this president over and over again has asserted the right to pick and choose what laws to follow,” Cruz continued. “That is fundamentally dangerous to the liberty of the people.”
But at the Conservative Political Action Conference in February, Cruz said he supports Colorado’s experiment with legalization.
“If the citizens of Colorado decide they want to go down that road, that’s their prerogative,“ he said. "I personally don’t agree with it, but that’s their right.”
Cruz, himself, smoked pot when he was a teenager.
"Teenagers are often known for their lack of judgment, and Sen. Cruz was no exception,” a Cruz spokesperson told the Daily Mail. “When he was a teenager, he foolishly experimented with marijuana. It was a mistake, and he’s never tried it since.”
Cruz speaks to potential supporters in New Hampshire, April 19, 2015. (Photo: Mary Schwalm/AP)
<FIGURE data-reactid=".0.$cover-mosaic-transition-group.$=1$cover-mosaic-0:0.$article-116920750826.0:$Pos-r.$article-inner-container.$inset-container.$grid-template.0.$col-left.$content.$grid-content.0.1.1.$text-body.0.2.$figure-75">
</FIGURE>New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie
• Ever smoke marijuana? “The answer is no.”
• Position on pot: Opposes legalization.
Among all possible GOP presidential candidates, Christie is perhaps the most unwavering in his opposition to marijuana legalization.
“I believe that this is a gateway drug into other more serious drugs,” Christie said on his radio show last year. “I think it sends a wrong message to our kids and I don’t think it makes anybody a better or more productive person.”
The New Jersey governor says his opposition to marijuana is reaffirmed every time he visits Colorado.
“For the people who are enamored with the idea with the income, the tax revenue from this, go to Colorado and see if you want to live there,” Christie said in April 2014, according to Policy Mic. “See if you want to live in a major city in Colorado where there’s head shops popping up on every corner and people flying into your airport just to come and get high. To me, it’s just not the quality of life we want to have here in the state of New Jersey and there’s no tax revenue that’s worth that.”
In 2012, Christie was asked on Twitter if he had ever gotten high.
“The answer is no,” the governor tweeted.
Christie calls on an audience member to during a town hall meeting in New Jersey. (Photo: Julio Cortez/AP/File)
<FIGURE data-reactid=".0.$cover-mosaic-transition-group.$=1$cover-mosaic-0:0.$article-116920750826.0:$Pos-r.$article-inner-container.$inset-container.$grid-template.0.$col-left.$content.$grid-content.0.1.1.$text-body.0.2.$figure-95">
</FIGURE>Rick Perry, former Texas governor
• Ever smoke marijuana? “No, thank God!”
• Position on pot: Supports decriminalization.
In a 2014 appearance on “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” Perry said he supports decriminalization.
“You don’t want to ruin a kid’s life for having a joint,” the then-governor said.
But when he was asked if he’d ever smoked marijuana himself, Perry responded, “No, thank God!”
Paul talks with patrons during a campaign stop at a diner in Merrimack, N.H., April 18, 2015. (Photo: Charles Krupa/AP)
<FIGURE data-reactid=".0.$cover-mosaic-transition-group.$=1$cover-mosaic-0:0.$article-116920750826.0:$Pos-r.$article-inner-container.$inset-container.$grid-template.0.$col-left.$content.$grid-content.0.1.1.$text-body.0.2.$figure-109">
</FIGURE>Martin O'Malley, former Maryland governor
• Ever smoke marijuana? Unclear.
• Position on pot: Supports decriminalization.
Last year, O'Malley signed into law a bill decriminalizes possession of 10 grams or less of marijuana in Maryland.
“As a young prosecutor, I once thought that decriminalizing the possession of marijuana might undermine the public will necessary to combat drug violence and improve public safety,” O’Malley said in a statement. “I now think that [it] is an acknowledgment of the low priority that our courts, our prosecutors, our police and the vast majority of citizens already attach to this transgression of public order and public health.”
O'Malley, though, said he was “not much in favor” of legalizing marijuana for recreational use.
O'Malley speaks at a Democratic fundraiser in Iowa, April 9, 2015. (Photo: Charlie Neibergall/AP)
<FIGURE data-reactid=".0.$cover-mosaic-transition-group.$=1$cover-mosaic-0:0.$article-116920750826.0:$Pos-r.$article-inner-container.$inset-container.$grid-template.0.$col-left.$content.$grid-content.0.1.1.$text-body.0.2.$figure-123">
</FIGURE>Hillary Clinton, former secretary of state
• Ever smoke marijuana? No.
• Position on pot: Supports medical marijuana “under appropriate circumstances.”
While her husband uttered the most infamous response to the pot question (“I didn’t inhale”) in American political history, Hillary Clinton says she’s never tried marijuana.
“I didn’t do it when I was young, I’m not going to start now,” Clinton told CNN last year.
On medical marijuana, the former secretary said it “should be available under appropriate circumstances” but more research is needed.
“I think we need to be very clear about the benefits of marijuana use for medicinal purposes,” she said. “ I don’t think we’ve done enough research yet.”
On legalization of recreational weed, Clinton says she wants to see how it works in Colorado and Washington first.
“States are the laboratories of democracy,” she said. “I want to wait and see what the evidence is.”
Clinton speaks during the first official event of her 2016 campaign in Monticello, Iowa, April 14, 2015. (Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty)
<FIGURE data-reactid=".0.$cover-mosaic-transition-group.$=1$cover-mosaic-0:0.$article-116920750826.0:$Pos-r.$article-inner-container.$inset-container.$grid-template.0.$col-left.$content.$grid-content.0.1.1.$text-body.0.2.$figure-143">
</FIGURE>While the legalization of marijuana may be a campaign issue in 2016, past use of the drug won’t be one.
According to a CBS News poll released Monday, 75 percent of American voters say a candidate’s history of marijuana use would not affect their vote. And 53 percent of Americans say the use of marijuana should be legal — an all-time high.
A audience member Obama about the legalization of Marijuana during a town hall meeting in Kingston, Jamaica, April 9, 2015. (Photo: Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP)
https://www.yahoo.com/politics/2016-candidates-marijuana-positions-legalization-116920750826.html
