From the Washington Post:

Presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders will announce his support Wednesday for removing marijuana from a list of the most dangerous drugs outlawed by the federal government — a move that would free states to legalize it without impediments from Washington.

Sanders’s plan would not automatically make marijuana legal nationwide, but states would be allowed to regulate the drug in the same way that state and local laws now govern sales of alcohol and tobacco. And people who use marijuana in states that legalize it would no longer be at risk of federal prosecution. His plan would also allow marijuana businesses currently operating in states that have legalized it to use banking services and apply for tax deductions that are currently unavailable to them under federal law.

What does this mean specifically?In other words, there is now a serious candidate in one of the two major parties proposing that the federal government approaches marijuana much like it approaches alcohol (as far as I can tell). This is huge. In contrast, Martin O'Malley proposed rescheduling marijuana as a schedule 2 drug and Hillary Clinton wants to see how state legalization practices (e.g. Colorado) play out before committing to new federal policies (though she states that our country needs to stop imprisoning people who use marijuana according to debate transcripts ).

Before today, Senator Sanders was calling for rethinking the war on drugs. Then during the Democratic debate, he declared he would vote for legalization in Nevada if he were a voter living there. And then on Jimmy Kimmel, he said he's open to the prospect of marijuana legalization in general. I believe we are reaching the apex of his evolution on this issue.

There is now a candidate in the Presidential race who wants the federal government to treat marijuana much like we treat alcohol.