Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) says it’s been “frustrating” to see marijuana legalization fall short of equity goals, which he said is partly due to ongoing federal prohibition. And while he’s pushing for reform, he characterized cannabis as a “dangerous” drug that hasn’t been studied enough.
The senator, who has long advocated for equity-centered federal legalization and sponsored a bill to that end with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) last year, discussed the prospects of drug policy reform at a panel at Tisch College on Monday.
Asked about which of his priorities could be achieved in the current Congress, Booker said that he believes that bipartisan lawmakers will be able to pass legislation to eliminate the sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine, and that marijuana “compromise legislation” is also something that “might happen” based on conversations with certain Republican colleagues.
However, while cannabis legalization is “something profoundly important to me,” Booker said that “what is really frustrating me is I thought that legalizing marijuana would have a democratizing force on our country, and it has not.”
He said he’s dissatisfied with the progress of expungements for people with prior cannabis convictions living in states where the plant is now legal, and also decried that the industry lacks critical diversity.
“Even the business side of this is…
