Bernie Sanders Calls For Federal Investigation Of Exxon

Bernie Sanders is making a dramatic move, calling on the federal government to reclassify marijuana as not dicey. "That's wrong. That has got to change", he added. Martin O'Malley has suggested loosening marijuana restrictions and removing it from the list of substances that have no medically accepted use and "high potential for abuse".

Sanders' Democratic rival for the presidential nomination, Hillary Clinton, has said she would like to see how legalization works out in states like Colorado and Washington ("laboratories of democracy", as she called them) before she takes a position on what should happen at the federal level.

Presidential contender Bernie Sanders is set to announce his support for ending federal marijuana prohibition at a town hall at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, tonight. And we're spending about $80 billion a year to lock people up. "This is the first time we've seen a major candidate for president say he'd probably vote for legalizing marijuana if given the chance", says Marijuana Majority Chairman Tom Angell.

"States should have the right to regulate marijuana the same way they do alcohol and tobacco". Under the Sanders proposal, it will fall to individual states and not the Drug Enforcement Administration to regulate cannabis for both recreational and medical use. There were more than 8 million marijuana-related arrests between 2001-2010, and almost 9 in 10 were for possession, Sanders claimed.

"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".

In 2013 a Gallup poll said 58% of Americans believed marijuana should be legalised. The Marijuana Policy Project, a pro-legalization group, has given the candidate an "A" grade for his stances on the issue. "I am not unfavorably disposed to moving toward the legalization of marijuana", Sanders said on "Jimmy Kimmel Live" recently.