{"id":5449,"date":"2016-01-28T23:58:36","date_gmt":"2016-01-28T23:58:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.marijuana.com\/?p=46514"},"modified":"2016-01-28T23:58:36","modified_gmt":"2016-01-28T23:58:36","slug":"bernie-sanders-spotlights-student-marijuana-essays","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/bernie-sanders-spotlights-student-marijuana-essays\/","title":{"rendered":"Bernie Sanders Spotlights Student Marijuana Essays"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"wp_fb_like_button\" style=\"margin:5px 0 5px 5px;float:right;height:100px;\"><script src=\"http:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/all.js#xfbml=1\"><\/script><fb:like href=\"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/bernie-sanders-spotlights-student-marijuana-essays\/\" send=\"true\" layout=\"standard\" width=\"450\" show_faces=\"false\" font=\"arial\" action=\"like\" colorscheme=\"light\"><\/fb:like><\/div><p>U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders took time away from the campaign trail on Wednesday to highlight the voices of young people who say marijuana should be legalized.<\/p>\n<p>The Vermont independent, who is running\u00a0for the Democratic presidential nomination, entered the essays of five students from his state into the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.congress.gov\/congressional-record\/2016\/1\/27\/senate-section\/article\/s251-2\">Congressional Record<\/a>. Two of the pieces argue that it&#8217;s time to change marijuana laws.<\/p>\n<p>Mikayla Clarke, a senior at Bellows Falls Union High School, pointed to the economic benefits of legalization. &#8220;By legalizing marijuana, many more job opportunities would\u00a0open and a whole new industry is created,&#8221; she wrote. &#8220;The amount that the whole country would make would be\u00a0in the billions.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"line-height: 1.5\">Megan Bromley, a senior at Milton Senior High School, argued that ending the war on marijuana can free up jail space and police time, which would allow the criminal justice system to put more focus on stopping and solving sexual assault.\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"line-height: 1.5\">&#8220;We are pouring millions of dollars into our state\u00a0and federal prison systems and too much of that is going towards people for up to twenty years for\u00a0marijuana possession,&#8221; she wrote. &#8220;However I propose to use the funding instead to evaluate something such as\u00a0unprocessed rape kits and begin to treat minor drug use in a proactive manner. Marijuana possession\u00a0should be removed as a state and federal crime and result in no jail time.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"line-height: 1.5\">The pieces\u00a0are finalists in Sanders&#8217;s sixth annual <\/span><a style=\"line-height: 1.5\" href=\"http:\/\/www.sanders.senate.gov\/stateoftheunion\/\">State of the Union Essay Contest<\/a><span style=\"line-height: 1.5\">. The essays by the three winners and 17\u00a0finalists are <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sanders.senate.gov\/download\/sotu-essays?inline=file\">available<\/a> on Sanders&#8217;s Senate website. In all, nearly 800 entires from 39 high schools were received.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>A third\u00a0finalist in the contest also argued for marijuana law reform, but her essay hasn&#8217;t yet been\u00a0entered into the Congressional Record.\u00a0&#8220;While people often say marijuana is a gateway drug, I strongly disagree,&#8221; wrote Alexis Manchester, a junior at Green Mountain Technology and Career Center. &#8220;There are more people that\u00a0drink a glass a milk per day and become addicted to more serious drugs, than those who use\u00a0marijuana.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sanders.senate.gov\/newsroom\/press-releases\/sanders-announces-winners-of-state-of-the-union-essay-contest\">press release<\/a> announcing the winners, Sanders said, \u201cAs is always the case, I am so impressed by the wide range of issues students wrote about this year, and by the quality of the essays. While there is no shortage of obstacles facing the United States, it is heartening to see so many young Vermonters thinking about the direction we need to go as a nation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"line-height: 1.5\">Sanders himself believes that states should be able to legalize marijuana without federal interference and has <\/span><a style=\"line-height: 1.5\" href=\"https:\/\/www.congress.gov\/bill\/114th-congress\/senate-bill\/2237\">sponsored legislation<\/a><span style=\"line-height: 1.5\"> to remove marijuana from the Controlled Substances\u00a0Act. He also said that he would personally vote to legalize marijuana if it were on the ballot.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><em>To find out what else Sanders and other presidential contenders\u00a0have said about cannabis law reform, check out <a href=\"http:\/\/www.marijuana.com\/blog\/news\/2015\/04\/where-do-presidential-candidates-stand-on-marijuana\/\">Marijuana.com&#8217;s comprehensive candidate tracker<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders took time away from the campaign trail on Wednesday to highlight the voices of young people who say marijuana should be legalized. The Vermont independent, who is running\u00a0for the Democratic presidential nomination, entered the essays of five students from his state into the Congressional Record. Two of the pieces argue that [&#8230;] <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2417,9,2418,1,3],"tags":[2419,2420],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5449"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5449"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5449\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}