Joe Biden Walks Back Marijuana 'Gateway Drug' Comment After Week Of Criticism

[JoeOtterbein]

MarijuanaMoment

Published 3 weeks ago on November 25, 2019By Kyle Jaeger

About one week after former Vice President Joe Biden said he opposed legalization in part because marijuana might be a gateway drug, the Democratic presidential candidate is now saying research doesn’t support that position.

In a call with reporters on Monday, the Nevada Independent’s Megan Messerly asked Biden whether he was wrong about suggesting that cannabis was a gateway to harder drugs at an earlier town hall event in Las Vegas.

Biden denied that he made the claim in the first place. “I didn’t,” he said. “I said some say pot was a gateway drug.”

After noting that he supports decriminalization, expunging prior records, releasing those incarcerated for marijuana offenses and rescheduling the plant, the former vice president formally walked back his position on whether existing scientific research demonstrates that cannabis leads to the use of other substances.

“I don’t think it is a gateway drug. There’s no evidence I’ve seen to suggest that.”

snip

“That has been my position and continues to be my position,” he said.

“With regard to the total legalization of it, there are some in the medical community who say it needs to be made a Schedule II drug so there can be research studies, as not whether it is a gateway drug but whether or not it, when used in other combinations, may have a negative impact on people overcoming other problems, including in fact on young people in terms of brain development—a whole range of things that are beyond my expertise. There are serious medical folks who say we should study it more. Not that we should make it illegal, that we should be in a position where we criminalize it but where we should look at it.”

snip

more at link

Note that Biden still supports keeping Cannabis illegal. in Late 2019.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

1. Thanks for the heads up Joe... better late than never I guess.

Bernie/Elizabeth or Elizabeth/Bernie 2020!!
Either way, they're stronger together!!
Welcome to the revolution!!!

[NurseJackie]

2. Published 3 weeks ago on November 25, 2019

Published 3 weeks ago on November 25, 2019

[JoeOtterbein]

3. What is your point? Is Biden still for keeping...

...cannabis?

[NurseJackie]

6. You're smart. Figure it out yourself.

[JoeOtterbein]

8. I already did. Biden said, in 2019...

...that he supports states locking people up for smoking.

Not funny.

[George II]

10. So what caused you to post this 3-week old "walk back" just hours after BS had to walk back....

....an ill-advised endorsement? Coincidence?

[sheshe2]

27. Thanks.

I was going to post this.

Timing is everything.

[George II]

30. crickets..............

[sheshe2]

31. Yep.

The music of the night.

[Tipperary]

36. Ha. I missed that.

How interesting.

[George II]

7. All the "walkback" articles are now being pulled up, coincidentally only hours after BS....

....had to walk back a questionable endorsement.

Quelle surprise!

[NurseJackie]

9. Thank goodness Joe hasn't endorsed a bestiality advocate/defender!

[George II]

15. I think we'd wind up (eventually) seeing something like this:

[NurseJackie]

16. 🐎🐴

🤣

[Wawannabe]

37. ++++

Yes.

[highplainsdem]

13. Yes. What an amazing coincidence...

[NNadir]

4. It's entirely unimportant. What IS important is that marijuana is a DRUG.

This is not a liberal cause, it is a partier's cause.

I personal object to the conflagration of marijuana and the serious issues before us.

It is certainly a crime that people go to jail for long periods for drug abuse, but it is a different thing to say that the use of drugs, in general, are all independent of one another.

There is considerable evidence that drug use, whether it's cigarettes, marijuana, opium, cocaine, or heroin are bad for you. I have personally observed that many people who are comfortable with drugs use different varieties from time to time. Does it matter which leads to which?

More important, why is this even remotely important? Is the President of the United States supposed to be a medical professional or is he supposed to be a President?

[billpolonsky]

14. BECAUSE

It's not a liberal cause, It's a JUSTICE cause.

Smoking a little pot makes you a criminal.

It is a gateway for police to kick in your door and shoot you.

its illegality sends kids to jail and then they have a record.

Drink Up Shriners!

[Gidney N Cloyd]

21. +1

[NNadir]

24. I think I made it clear that I'm against prison for drug abusers, but they are abusers.

Look, my father was a tobacco addict. It cost him, 25 years ago, a quarter of a million dollars to die.

Should he have gone to prison for smoking tobacco?

No, of course not. But the fact is that his "choice" to smoke tobacco, to which he was addicted since he was eight years old, represented a cost to society at large.

There are consequences of getting high with or without prison. For one thing, pot abuse makes many people idiots. And please don't hand me tiresome bullshit about Carl Sagan. So what? Suppose he was a genius while high; does it prove he wouldn't have been smarter and greater without pot?

However, it is a typical baby boomer focus - and I'm speaking as a person who came of age in the 60's and 70's - to make their sybaritic excesses the most important thing in the world.

Guess what?

Their consumer shit sucks.

800 million people go to bed hungry every night. More or less important than getting high?

The planetary atmosphere is collapsing. More important or less important than getting high?

Fascism is rising around the world is rising. More important or less important than getting high?

Plastic in the oceans will soon outweigh fish. More important or less important than getting high?

Seventy million people die every decade from air pollution. More important or less important than getting high?

Kids get shot for the crime of being black. More important or less important than getting high.

Kids are living in cages at the US border. More important or less important than getting high.

How about we teach kids not to get high on anything, and not to take any addictive substances. Good idea or bad idea?

There's plenty of injustice on this planet. Having grown up as a baby boomer, I know lots of people who got busted for pot and didn't go to prison, didn't get shot, and didn't have their lives destroyed by the arrest.

I really, really, really, really, really don't like being lectured on what is or is not important about justice.

You know something? Whenever I comment on the fact that pot is a drug and make a negative statement about it, I hear a lot more passionate objections than when I talk about any of the stuff above.

The only thing that's worse, is the crap I hear when I criticize Elon Musk's car for millionaires and millionaires.

My generation disgusts me. There was so much more we could have done than sex, drugs, and rock and roll.

We're a bunch of terminal asses, and the orange asshole in the White House is in many ways the avatar of what we were. The sooner we're gone, the better.

[George II]

5. Ah, so Sanders had to walk back an ill-conceived endorsement today so now all the....

...."walkback" articles about other candidates are being dragged out and posted.

Unbelievable.

[JoeOtterbein]

11. Even today there is news in my hometown, about how our drug laws can kill. See...

[link:https://www.yorkdispatch.com/story/news/local/pennsylvania/2019/12/13/suit-pilot-tried-warn-dozer-killed-pot-suspect/40821881/|York Dispatch

Suit: Pilot tried to warn before dozer killed pot suspect

The family of a marijuana suspect who wound up dead under the treads of a bulldozer commandeered by Pennsylvania State Police has filed an amended lawsuit that raises new questions about the agency’s tactics.

The family is suing state police, the Pennsylvania Game Commission and others. The suit accuses police of extreme recklessness in their pursuit of 51-year-old Gregory Longenecker, who had been caught growing marijuana plants on public land near Reading.

An amended complaint, filed Thursday, quotes a state police helicopter pilot as expressing shock that a police colleague was using the bulldozer to look for Longenecker, who was hiding in thick brush. Cpl. Edward Stefanides said that the bulldozer appeared to be “coming in blind” and that he tried to tell its operator to stop

snip

[George II]

12. So what does that have to do with Joe Biden? C'mon man, you had to post a "walkback"....

....from three weeks ago after Sanders embarrassingly walked back an ill-conceived endorsement a few hours earlier?

Please explain. Thanks!

[sheshe2]

28. ...

[George II]

29. bwahahahahaha!!!!

[sheshe2]

33. ;)

[Thekaspervote]

18. See post #17

[Thekaspervote]

17. Here's Joe Biden's official stance on marijuana

This is really old news posted here on 11/18

Link to tweet

/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1196577576644415489&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.democraticunderground.com%2F1287350768

[George II]

20. Yeahbut, "walkbacks" are the topic o'the day.

[Thekaspervote]

32. Oh riggght!! Thx for the reminder

[PatSeg]

35. Thanks

Nice to clarify things.

[sweetloukillbot]

38. But but but he wants to lock up people for just smoking!

Someone even said that he said it this year!!!!

[W_HAMILTON]

19. Has Sanders walked back his calling of marijuana a gateway drug?

Couric: But you said there's two sides to the story.

Sanders: If you talk to law enforcement folks, what they worry about is, they see this as, uh, an entry level drug which leads to coke, which leads to heroin, and so forth.

Couric: A gateway drug, yeah.

Sanders: A gateway drug, correct.

Taken from 29:50 of the video at: https://www.yahoo.com/news/bernie-sanders-talks-to-katie-couric-bernie-120458581061.html

[Gidney N Cloyd]

22. From that I can't tell if Bernie's saying it's a gateway drug or if he's saying the police do.

[W_HAMILTON]

25. Feel free to watch the video then if you need further clarification.

[Thekaspervote]

23. Hummmm...tea pot...meet kettle

[sheshe2]

34. Ouch.

[dlk]

26. I like Joe and he has served our country with honor. It's time for him to rest on his laurels

[The Valley Below]

39. People who claim marijuana doesn't undermine brain development in young people

are spreading falsehoods.

It is hardly a benign drug when used by adolescents.

We are seeing the repercussions of a very flawed legalization law here in CA where illegal business have taken over a large majority of the market and are selling to teenagers.

Kids who are stoned at school don't learn. We are in a crisis here that no one is talking about, other than concerned teachers who are doing their best to send up red flags.

We need to do better than this.