Growing support for legalizing marijuana among Democratic presidential candidates may help them pick up some moderate voters in next year’s election while also cementing the support of hard-line conservatives for President Trump.
The emphasis is on the word “may.” While the Democratic slate represents the most pro-cannabis field to set its sights on the White House to date, political analysts say the extent of the issue’s influence is still far from clear.
“The big question is whether support for marijuana legalization is both broad and deep,” said Sam Kamin, a law professor at the University of Denver and marijuana policy expert. “It’s clearly broader than we would’ve thought a few years ago. Whether it’s something that will make voters choose one candidate over another remains to be seen.”
The vast majority of Democratic candidates favor legalizing marijuana at the federal level, while two believe that decision would be best left to the states. One candidate, former Vice President Joe Biden, has limited his support to eliminating criminal penalties for possession of marijuana and erasing records of past convictions.
Their stances reflect an effort to take advantage of growing public support for legalizing marijuana, which hit 61% in 2018, according to the General Social Survey from NORC (originally the National Opinion Research Center) at the University of Chicago. Among the political parties, 69% of Democrats and 66% of independents back legalization, while only 42% of Republicans do.
Support among GOP voters has been steadily increasing since 2012, however, the survey found. An April CBS News poll showed support for marijuana legalization among Democrats at 72% and Republicans at 56%.
“It’s one of the most popular, bipartisan political issues in the country right now,” and Democratic candidates realize “it’s something they can use to differentiate themselves and drive support,” said Erik Altieri, executive director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.
Democrats in particular have “finally caught up” with public opinion, said Michael Collins, director of national affairs at Drug Policy Action. They’re “embracing marijuana legalization through a racial justice lens, talking about it not as a jobs creator, but needing to right the wrongs of the past,” he said. “If marijuana legalization were polling at 20%, I don’t think we’d see as much discussion, but it’s polling very high.”
Republicans have taken a harsher law-and-order stance on criminal justice issues since the 1970s, when President Richard Nixon declared a war on drugs, and support for cannabis legalization among moderates may give Democrats an edge in 2020.
Moderates are “going to be among the most hard, sought-after voters,” Altieri said. “These are the kinds of issues they gravitate toward and care about. By taking these stances, you can win them over and win over younger voters and those who are typically apolitical. It drives nonvoters to the polls.”
But, Kamin said, “the differences between the parties are stark enough” that it’s unlikely a conservative Republican or Democrat would choose to cross over based on a candidate’s stance on marijuana.
“I can’t imagine someone saying, ‘Gosh, it’s a coin flip, but the Democrats’ marijuana policy stinks,'” he said. In the “partisan moment, it’s choosing among Democrats here that seems to be an issue.”
While candidates during this week’s debates were not asked directly about their positions on marijuana, Sens. Cory Booker of New Jersey and Kamala Harris of California used their time on stage to raise the topic, as did Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii.
“We have got to have far more bold action on criminal justice reform, like having true marijuana justice, which means that we legalize it on a federal level and reinvest the profits in communities that have been disproportionately targeted by marijuana enforcement,” Booker said. Critics have frequently said that minorities are arrested on low-level drug offenses far more often than whites.
Harris, too, reiterated her support of legalization at the federal level after fending off attacks from Gabbard over her record of prosecuting drug offenses.
While marijuana use still remains an illegal Schedule I drug under federal law, 33 states now allow medical marijuana use and 11 allow recreational use. The efforts at the state level likely helped influence the shift in public support.
“As the first couple states began to take those steps toward legalization, it took away the lingering fear of the ‘just say no’ era,” Altieri said.
The state-level action has also elevated debate over whether there should be a change in federal law, which some members of the Senate who are running for president are seeking.
In February, Booker introduced a bill that would remove marijuana from the government’s list of controlled substances, thus making it permissible at the federal level, and automatically expunge convictions of those who served federal time for marijuana use and possession.
Signing on to Booker’s legislation were Harris and Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Michael Bennet of Colorado, and Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent, all of whom are seeking their party’s presidential nomination.
But Kamin cautioned that lifting federal marijuana prohibition would be the first of many steps if a Democrat were to win the White House.
“This moves from a criminal justice to a regulatory issue, and that has lots of implications for policy, public health, business, taxation,” he said. “So it’s not like, ‘Elect a Democrat and legalize it and we’ll move on.’”
