The Current Deal with Marijuana: 2020 and Beyond?

By: Veronica Baladi

Whether this plant is known as “pot,” “weed,” or “420,” the legalization of cannabis both medically and recreationally is a sensitive, highly debated topic across the United States. Especially with the Presidential Elections of 2020 on the horizon, the plethora of opposing views and reasoning behind them is quite a great deal to process.

In order to truly understand the significance of this hallucinogen to Americans, it is important to conjure up an idea of the past of marijuana itself and its surprisingly profound impact on American history. Art icons such as the hit Reggae singer/songwriter Bob Marley and notorious guitarist Jimi Hendrix were avid cannabis users. Marley called cannabis “an aid to meditation” at one point, which rebelled to common views to marijuana at the time. However, medical experts may view the use of cannabis as harmful, and is a taboo topic to civilians.

The use of cannabis has always been a controversial topic, and has never truly been completely resolved on a federal level; this is questionable especially considering how long it has been in the public eye, and the politicians of 2020 each have their own sort of stance on the legalization of marijuana federal level, which depict that this argument has been evolving.

This raging debate is even causing divides between individual political parties themselves. About 49% of Democrats support legalization, and 50% of Republicans are opposed showing a divide in both parties on the stance of this issue.

But, the arguably most significant opinion about the legalization of marijuana is that of the American population, as the United States is a democratic republic and that each level of legalization impacts this group. Pew Research studies display about 6-in-10 Americans overall think marijuana should be legalized.

When it comes to the Presidential race of 2020, almost all democratic candidates, with the exception of Joe Biden, support the legalization of marijuana, which may seem surprising because a majority of American democrats do not appear to support this. President Donald Trump’s position, on the other hand, is unclear, so this issue is not very prevalent to him.

Especially with the arrival of the 2020 elections nearing, this issue is still up in the air for all parties and candidates. For now, the status of marijuana remains on the state level.

https://disa.com/map-of-marijuana-legality-by-state

https://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/2018/11/01/politics-and-pot-how-do-democrats-and-republicans-use-cannabis/1823707002/

https://iop.harvard.edu/survey/details/political-issue-marijuana