Connect with us

News

Bernie Sanders’ Medicare for All Plan Could Cover Medical Cannabis

Published

on

[dropcap class=”kp-dropcap”]O[/dropcap]ne of Bernie Sanders’ top officials didn’t rule out the possibility of coverage for medical cannabis under the presidential candidate’s controversial Medicare for All plan.

Last week—at 4:20 p.m.—Sanders unveiled his plan to legalize cannabis via executive order. The candidate also promised to legalize the plant within 100 days of taking office. Then on Oct. 25, Sanders’ National Policy Director Josh Orton indicated that the presidential candidate’s Medicare for All Plan could include medical cannabis.

If elected, Sanders promised to declassify cannabis under its Schedule 1 status, legalize it and help citizens to expunge past cannabis convictions. While almost every other presidential candidate on the Democratic ticket is proposing some sort of cannabis legalization plan, excluding former Vice President Joe Biden, Sanders takes it one step further. Unique to Sander’s legalization plan, it would also provide social equity grants under at $20 billion program. It would also provide $10 billion to help people who live in areas that are disproportionately affected by the “War on Drugs.”

“We have to do research on that but of course Medicare for all covers all medically necessary needs,” Josh Orton told Hill.TV during an interview that aired on Friday. “But it’s not something that we would rule out.”

Paramount to Sanders goals is undoing some of the wrongs that were inflicted upon disadvantaged communities under the illegal status of cannabis. It’s one of the core issues of his platform. “Cops have been using marijuana—the smell of marijuana—as a legal pretext for stops and to bring people into the criminal al justice system that should never be there in the first place,” Orton added. “Bernie’s focus has been to make sure we address the racial justice issue and undo the harm that the war on drugs as related to marijuana, especially, has wrought.”

The Fifth Democratic Debate is scheduled to take place on Nov. 20 in Atlanta, Georgia.

Continue Reading
Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *