Rep. Joseph Kennedy III, D-Mass., has reversed his position on nationwide legalization of marijuana in an opinion piece released the day recreational pot sales began in his state.
“Given the rapid pace of state-level legalization and liberalization, I believe we must implement strong, clear, and fair federal guidelines. To do that requires us to remove marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) and legalize it at the federal level,” Kennedy wrote in STAT.
The congressman came out against legalization in 2016, just two months before Massachusetts voters approved referendum on the issue, and expressed concerns about marijuana legalization as recently as last March. He said in an interview on Vox’s “The Ezra Klein Show” that “one of my main focuses in Congress is on mental health and addiction and there are a number of voices in that community that do pose serious questions about either the decriminalization or legalization efforts.”
In his opinion piece released Tuesday, Kennedy wrote that his “reluctance to embrace legalization stems primarily from one place: my ongoing work with the mental health and addiction communities,” but said that he “worked to rectify these perspectives” by educating himself on the benefits of marijuana and the problems with the federal laws regarding it.
“One thing is clear to me: Our federal policy on marijuana is badly broken, benefiting neither the elderly man suffering from cancer whom marijuana may help nor the young woman prone to substance use disorder whom it may harm. The patchwork of inconsistent state laws compounds the dysfunction. Our federal government has ceded its responsibility — and authority — to thoughtfully regulate marijuana.”
“This needs to change,” Kennedy wrote.
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