US Senator Cory Booker called out Biden, slamming his role in advancing punitive criminal justice reform legislation and arguing that the country needs “far more bold action on criminal justice reform,” and that includes “true marijuana justice, which means legalizing it on a federal level and reinvest the profits in communities that have been disproportionately targeted by marijuana enforcement.”

Democratic candidates clashed on marijuana policy during Wednesday’s presidential debate, with the overwhelming focus on former vice president Joe Biden’s record of supporting harsh drug criminalization policies.

Marijuana Moment is a wire service assembled by Tom Angell, a marijuana legalization activist and journalist covering marijuana reform nationwide. The views expressed by Angell or Marijuana Moment are neither endorsed by the Globe nor do they reflect the Globe’s views on any subject area.


“This is a crisis in our country because we have treated issues of race and poverty, mental health and addiction, with locking people up and not lifting them up,” Booker said.

Biden’s drug policy platform — particularly his decades-long Senate record as an author of punitive anti-drug laws — has become a target for reform-minded Democratic candidates in recent weeks. He was the first candidate to be asked about criminal justice at the debate, and highlighting his new, somewhat-evolved position, he said that “when someone is convicted of a drug crime, they end up going to jail and to prison” when they “should be going to rehabilitation.”

While the former vice president has attempted to distance himself from his drug warrior image, including his unveiling of a criminal justice reform plan that would decriminalize cannabis and expunge some marijuana conviction records, his opponents won’t let him forget his past positions — or the fact that he still opposes full legalization.

“The house was set on fire and you claimed responsibility for those laws and you can’t just now come out with a plan to put out that fire,” Booker said. “We have got to have far more bold action on criminal justice reform.”


Biden pushed back against the senator from New Jersey, inquiring about his stop-and-frisk policing policies from his time as the mayor of Newark, N.J.

Booker accused the former VP of “trying to shift the view from what you created,” noting that “there are people right now in prison for life for drug offenses because you stood up and used that tough-on-crime, phony rhetoric that got a lot of people elected but destroyed communities like mine.”

Former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro joined in to say that he agreed Biden’s role in pushing the 1994 crime bill “was a mistake” and that “he has flip-flopped on these things, and that’s clear.”

Washington Governor Jay Inslee invited candidates to visit his state to witness “what criminal justice reform looks like,” touting his initiative to pardon thousands of individuals with cannabis possession convictions on their record.

A little context on the Booker-Biden quarrel

Shortly after Biden released his criminal justice reform proposal earlier this month, Booker issued a press release deeming the plan inadequate and arguing that the “proud architect of a failed system is not the right person to fix it.”

Booker also said that Biden seems to have an “inability to talk candidly about the mistakes he made, about things he could’ve done better, about how some of the decisions he made at the time, in difficult context, actually have resulted in really bad outcomes.”


Booker has put an emphasis on drug reform policy throughout his campaign. In an effort to distinguish himself from the pack of candidates, he has highlighted his support for comprehensive marijuana legislation, including bills like his Marijuana Justice Act that go beyond descheduling cannabis and include provisions aimed at promoting social equity in the marijuana industry and righting the wrongs of prohibition.

Kamala Harris faces criticism on marijuana record

US Senator Kamala Harris and US Representative Tulsi Gabbard also weighed in on cannabis policy. Among other things, Harris faced criticism from Gabbard about her marijuana record as a California prosecutor who once campaigned against legalization.

Though Harris filed federal legislation this month to remove marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act and invest in programs to repair the damage from the war on drugs, she has also faced criticism for talking about her marijuana record in lighthearted ways, including in a radio interview in March.

Gabbard was less-than-impressed by Harris’s recents efforts to legalize marijuana, pointing out that as the California attorney general, Harris “put over 1,500 people in jail for marijuana violations and laughed about it when she was asked if she ever smoked marijuana.”

Harris responded that in California, she reformed the criminal justice system “which became a national model for the work that needs to be done. And I am proud of that work.”

“And I am proud of making a decision to not just give fancy speeches or be in a legislative body and give speeches on the floor but actually doing the work, of being in the position to use the power that I had to reform a system that is badly in need of reform,” she said.


“That is why we created initiatives that were about re-entering former offenders and getting them counseling,” she continued. “It’s why, and because I know the criminal justice system is so broken, it is why I’m an advocate for what we need to do to not only decriminalize but legalize marijuana in the United States.”

Marijuana discussions during the first CNN debate

While drug policy reform was strongly featured at Wednesday’s event, it received little attention during Tuesday’s debate, which involved pro-legalization candidates such as US Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.

Pete Buttigieg, mayor of South Bend, Indiana, discussed alcohol prohibition and said the country’s choice to reverse that decision shows that more change on other issues is possible.

“This is a country that once changed its Constitution so you couldn’t drink and then changed it back because we changed our minds about that,” he said.

Warren argued that President Trump is advancing “criminal justice racism.” Sanders decried the “prison-industrial complex.” And US Senator Amy Klobuchar emphasized the need to hold pharmaceutical companies accountable for the opioid epidemic. Biden echoed Klobuchar’s point Wednesday, arguing that we “should put some of these insurance executives who oppose my plan in jail for the 9 billion opioids they sell out there.”


Entrepreneur Andrew Yang on Wednesday said he would “trust anyone on the stage more than I trust our current president on matters of criminal justice.”

Read the original story on Marijuana Moment.