Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a Democratic presidential candidate for 2024. He says he will legalize marijuana and psychoactives, and tax them. The revenue he receives from the taxes would be used to establish “healing centres” where drug addicts could learn organic gardening as a therapy tool. He also expressed support for the opening of banking services to the cannabis industry.
It was unclear what the candidate’s stance on drug policy reform would be when he entered the race, but it has become clearer as he advocates progressive policies in some cases that go beyond those of the incumbent president Joe Biden.
Kennedy spoke about his struggles with addiction in his youth, and the lessons he has learned from his years of recovery. Kennedy said that he doesn’t recommend drugs to treat substance abuse, but he has seen how psychedelics have helped his family to heal psychologically.
He said that “I would legalize psychoedelic drugs – some form of legalization” and that he does not necessarily envision a market where people could go to a shop in order to purchase the substances. However, he believes that access should be regulated. He doesn’t plan to stop at legalization.
stated that he would decriminalize cannabis on a federal level, allow states to regulate the drug, and continue to tax marijuana federally. These taxes will be used to fund recovery programs. “And I’d do the same for psychedelics, which I don’t think should be criminalized.”
His cannabis and psychedelic tax funded recovery program is inspired by the Italian treatment center San Patrignano. It takes people who are struggling with addiction or at risk and supports them through an agriculturally centered method. Residents are involved in gardening, forestry, and animal care.
He said, “That’s the kind of society we need here.” As president, I would decriminalize cannabis. I’ll make sure that people who sell it are protected by safe banking laws, and I’ll tax it at the federal level. I will then use this money to build healing centers for kids in rural, depressed areas of the country where they can grow organic foods, eat healthy, and heal themselves physically, spiritually, and emotionally.
The reference to “safe banking laws,” seems to refer to the bipartisan Secure and Fair Enforcement Banking Act (SAFE), which protects financial institutions who work with state-legal marijuana businesses from being penalized federal regulators. The proposal to impose federal taxes on marijuana sales goes much further than this incremental reform.
He also criticised the current approach to drug treatment in America.
Kennedy stated, “I have an idea of what is effective and what we should do in this nation–and I think we should make addiction treatment simple, easy, and cheap.” “The [drug treatment] business has become a predatory one, due to a number of factors.”
The candidate stated that he had reviewed studies about psychedelics and “there are so many people who benefit from them in different ways, and we need to make it easier – maybe to prescribe them or give them therapeutically.”
I don’t think you can buy them at the store. “I have to take a look at everything,” he said. “But we have to make sure that people can use them easily in a way that benefits our children, and everyone else. “I’ve seen the benefits in my family.”
He claimed that he has “seen miracle recoveries from psychedelic drug use from PTSD in veterans who used it, and from people who suffered severe depression, OCD, and many other injuries.”
Kennedy stated that “I am not advocating blanket legalization, but we should make it easier for psychiatrists and psychotherapists to experiment with this drug on their patients and to see if they get positive results.”
When asked about the stigmatizing ways in which some have described the struggles of the son of the current president with substance abuse, he said that addiction is “a tragedy, and it is cunning, and it is incomprehensible. It’s baffling, and it really difficult to handle.” I wish him and the family all the best.”
The comments of the candidate come only days after he attacked Florida Governor Rick Scott. Ron DeSantis shared an article from Marijuana Moment about the Republican candidate for president’s opposition to decriminalizing cannabis at federal level.
Kennedy, son of former Attorney-General Robert Kennedy and the nephew of President John F. Kennedy said that as president he would implement cannabis reform and that the current conflict between state and federal policy is “absurd.”
Kennedy has been criticized by many Democrats for his views on vaccines, but he is eager to differentiate himself in other areas of drug policy as he tries to convince voters to vote for him over Biden.
Biden’s younger sister revealed on a Wednesday radio show that the President is “very receptive” to the use of psychedelic drugs for addiction treatment.
Marijuana Moment asked a senior Biden official recently, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra about his department’s current policy on psychedelics. He said he had to “defer to” the expertise of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, which actively promotes funding opportunities for studying the science and laws surrounding psychedelics.
In 2020, Joe Kennedy III, a member of the Kennedy clan who was opposed to marijuana reform when he served in Congress, changed his mind and now supports the exploration of the therapeutic potentials of psychedelics.
NBA Signs Official Contract Removing Marijuana from Banned Substances list and Allowing Players to Invest in Cannabis Companies
Image element by Gage Skidmore.
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