Biden’s blunt opposition to marijuana legalization

As his own party moves ahead on the issue, the president remains opposed to legalization.

President Joe Biden speaks in the Treaty Room in the White House on April 14, 2021.

 Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

This month, something unusual happened: Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer took a stand against President Joe Biden.

The New York Democrat, typically a strong Biden ally, has transformed into one of the Senate’s biggest advocates for marijuana legalization, which Biden continues to oppose. But Schumer said he’ll move forward with his legalization bill anyway.

“I want to make my arguments to him, as many other advocates will,” Schumer said. “But at some point we’re going to move forward, period.”

Schumer is likely worried, at least in part, about a primary challenge from the left in the future — something Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) has openly discussed.

But there’s a bigger issue here for Biden. Increasingly, the president is out of step with not just his party but the country and perhaps even most Republicans on marijuana legalization.

Marijuana legalization is extremely popular. Gallup and the Pew Research Center, two of the country’s leading polling organizations, have consistently found at least two-thirds of Americans back legalization.

Support is so high that, at this point, a majority of Republicans — who are generally more skeptical of drug policy reforms — may support it. Pew found 55 percent of Republicans back legalization. Gallup found a slim majority of Republicans supported it in 2017, 2018, and 2019. That reversed in 2020, but the difference between support and opposition among Republicans was still within the sampling margin of error. And, at any rate, a solid minority of 48 percent were behind it.

Read more: https://www.vox.com/22387746/biden-marijuana-weed-legalization-schumer-polls