Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman has called on President Joe Biden to decriminalize cannabis ahead of Biden’s campaign stop in the state next week.
“It’s long past time that we finally decriminalize marijuana,” Fetterman, a U.S. Senate candidate, said in a statement to The Hill. “The president needs to use his executive authority to begin descheduling marijuana; I would love to see him do this prior to his visit to Pittsburgh. This is just common sense and Pennsylvanians overwhelmingly support decriminalizing marijuana.”
A spokesperson for Fetterman’s campaign previously told The Hill that the Democrat would be pressing Biden on the issue of cannabis decriminalization when the president made his stop in Pennsylvania.
Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was asked about Fetterman’s statement during an Aug. 29 White House briefing, according to The Hill, to which she replied, “The president supports leaving decisions regarding legalization for recreational use up to the states, rescheduling cannabis as a Schedule II drug so researchers can study its positive and negative impacts and at the federal level, he supports decriminalizing marijuana use and automatically expunging any prior criminal records.”
Fetterman has also spoken out against his Republican opponent, Mehmet Oz, who has expressed opposition to cannabis legalization, The Hill reported.
“Are we supposed to believe that neither he nor any members of his staff have ever used marijuana?” Fetterman said, according to the news outlet.
