The race for 2020 is on and a majority of the Democratic candidates have shown their support for cannabis legalization. Add former Vice President Joe Biden to that list.
Biden recently mentioned to CNN that he is for decriminalization of cannabis, but stopped short of support full legalization. In a statement to the news outlet, Biden said he supports “decriminalizing marijuana and automatically expunging prior criminal records for marijuana possession, so those affected don’t have to figure out how to petition for it or pay for a lawyer.”
The statement continued.
“He would allow states to continue to make their own choices regarding legalization and would seek to make it easier to conduct research on marijuana’s positive and negative health impacts by rescheduling it as a schedule 2 drug,” the representative said.
This is a big shift for Biden who in the past crafted some of the hardest anti-drug laws while in Senate.
This April, Biden applauded a professor who dismissed the idea that cannabis can be used as an alternative to opioid painkillers.