WASHINGTON — Surgeon General Vivek Murthy believes that marijuana consumption should be decriminalized at the state and national levels.
Murthy, a public health hanger-on from the Obama administration and an ally to the Biden White House, gave his remarks in a recent interview with CNN.
“When it comes to decriminalization, I don’t think that there is value to individuals or to society to lock people up for marijuana use,” Murthy said, via coverage on his CNN appearance from Marijuana Moment journalist Tom Angell.
“I don’t think that serves anybody well,” Murthy added.
Also note, Surgeon General Murthy stopped short of calling for total marijuana legalization when asked about his position on the matter.
CNN’s “State of the Union” anchor Dana Bash offered such a line of questioning in response to Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) introducing a vast marijuana decriminalization measure with members of the Democratic majority in the Senate.
The measure intends to decriminalize marijuana consumption at the federal level and further devolve the powers of regulation to state governments to handle.
“When it comes to marijuana, I think we have to let science guide us,” Murthy told Bash during their interview. “And we know that the science tells us that there are some benefits to marijuana from a medical perspective but there are also some harms that we have to consider—and we have to put those together as we think about the right policy.”
President Joe Biden remains on the fence about legalizing marijuana at the national level, as Vaping Post previously reported.
Despite having adopted some public recognition for campaigning on an “end the war on drugs”-mantra, Biden has made no visible attempt even to overturn decades of systemically racist and public health-harming law enforcement policies.
During his tenure as Surgeon General under former President Barack Obama, Murthy adopted a hard stance against tobacco harm reduction theories and the potential for electronic cigarettes to help tobacco users quit using combustible products like cigarettes.
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