WASHINGTON — It was a debate moment to remember for Cory Booker.

Not so much for Joe Biden.

With barely 15 minutes left in the two-plus hour Democratic presidential debate, the New Jersey senator brought the house down by saying he was incredulous the former vice president opposed legalizing marijuana.

“I thought you might have been high when you said it,” Booker said to Biden.

Booker has introduced legislation to remove the federal ban on cannabis, leaving it to the states to decide whether to allow the drug for medicinal or recreational use. He is a Senate sponsor of legislation that passed the House Judiciary Committee earlier on Wednesday, and has stressed that most arrested and imprisoned for possession are minorities.

“Marijuana in our country is already legal for privileged people, and a war on drugs has been a war on African Americans," Booker said.

During his tenure as mayor of Newark, police officers arrested far more blacks than whites for marijuana possession, FBI statistics show. In 2013, for example, 1,115 of the 1,315 individuals arrested were black.

Biden has called for decriminalizing cannabis, but he still wants federal restrictions on its use even as he, like Booker, would expunge previous convictions for using marijuana.

The dispute over marijuana was another effort by Booker to peel black voters away from Biden, who was vice president under President Barack Obama. Biden polled 43 percent among blacks in last month’s Quinnipiac University survey.

And it led to a gaffe by the former vice president as he defended himself.

“It makes sense, based on data, that we should study what the long-term effects are for the use of marijuana,” Biden said. “That’s all it is. Number one, everybody gets out, record expunged.”

Biden talked about his support among black voters and mentioned he had the endorsement of “the only African-American woman that’s ever been elected to the United States Senate."

That drew laughter as Booker kept repeating that Biden was wrong. U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris of California, who was standing on the debate stage with Biden, also called him out.

“No, that’s not true,” Harris said. “The other one is here.”

Biden later said he was referring to the first elected black senator, Carol Moseley Braun of Illinois.

“No, I said the first,” Biden said. “I said the first African-American woman. The first African-American woman.”

RT if you know that marijuana is *already legal* for people who are privileged.



Add your name if you believe it should be for everyone. https://t.co/3dxgr3JFVI — Cory Booker (@CoryBooker) November 21, 2019

It was the second time Booker tried to mix it up with frontrunners for the Democratic presidential nomination. Booker also clashed with U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts over her proposed wealth tax.

Booker also had a couple of good lines during the debate. Backing up Pete Buttigieg’s contention that mayoral experience qualifies him for the White House, Booker said: “I happen to be the other Rhodes Scholar mayor on this stage."

And as other candidates discussed bringing out the African American vote, he said: “I have a lifetime of experience with black voters. I’ve been one since I was 18."

Jonathan D. Salant may be reached at jsalant@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JDSalant or on Facebook. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook.

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