Bernie Sanders Becomes First Major Candidate To Back Cannabis Legalization

At Democratic debate in NV, Sanders expressed support for that state's legal pot efforts

Vermont senator Bernie Sanders recently became the first major-party presidential candidate to side with the pro-legalization movement in the United States.

During the very first Democratic debate in Nevada on Tuesday, October 13, the senator was asked how he would vote regarding the state's ballot initiative for 2016 that would regulate Cannabis like alcohol.

"I suspect I would vote yes," Sanders responded. "And I would vote yes because I am seeing in this country too many lives being destroyed for non-violent offenses. We have a criminal justice system that lets CEOs on Wall Street walk away, and yet we are imprisoning or giving jail sentences to young people who are smoking marijuana. I think we have to think through this War on Drugs, which has done an enormous amount of damage."

Hillary Clinton has thus far evaded supplying direct answers to similar questions, citing the need to wait until time had passed in Colorado and Washington, the first two states to legalize recreational marijuana for adults, so that, presumably, observations and adjustments could be made in order to better execute similar policies in more recently-legalized states.

When reminded that time had, indeed passed since implementation in those areas and pressed as to whether she had formed an opinion, Clinton again side-stepped, freely offering her support of legal access to medi-weed but utterly failing to offer a position on the legalization of the sales, cultivation, possession and consumption of recreational pot for adults.

Hillary's detractors in the pro-pot camp have suggested that the evasion is mere fence-sitting, as adhering to one position or another could prove to be as contentious for some voters as other divisive issues, such as immigration or abortion.

Conversely, this recent claim of Sanders could cement his position as the candidate of choice for some left-leaning members of the Cannabis community. Although he has previously expressed his concerns about the damage resulting from America's drug war, his pro-pot answers at the debate have perhaps reached a more varied audience than before.

Lincoln Chafee, Jim Webb and Martin O'Malley, the remaining three Democratic candidates at the debate, were not afforded the opportunity to reveal their opinions regarding marijuana legalization, either for medical or recreational purposes.

The Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) allows voters to track the marijuana-related positions of each presidential candidate.