Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) released a criminal justice reform plan on Sunday that includes proposals to legalize marijuana, expunge past cannabis convictions and provide for safe injection sites to combat the opioid overdose crisis. The 2020 Democratic presidential candidate emphasized racially disparate arrest rates for marijuana and said that such disparities “pervade every aspect of the criminal justice system.”
“When Bernie is president, we will finally make the deep and structural investments to rebuild the communities that mass incarceration continues to decimate,” his campaign website states.
A key component of the senator’s comprehensive proposal is changing federal drug laws and treating addiction as a mental health issue.
