Former U.S. transportation secretary and potential 2028 presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg says that the medical benefits of marijuana have “made a difference” for people close to him.
“I can tell you that I think the American majority recognizes that people should have access to this,” the former Biden administration cabinet member and South Bend, Indiana mayor said during a visit to Nebraska last week to support a Democratic congressional candidate from the state.
“Its certainly made a difference to people I’ve served with, to people in my extended family, and I hope common sense prevails,” Buttigieg said.
The comments come as Nebraska officials are moving forward to some extent to implement ballot initiatives that voters approved in 2024 to legalize medical cannabis and provide for a regulatory structure to oversee businesses that provide it to patients.
Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers (R) has claimed that the cannabis measure never should have appeared on the ballot due to alleged issues related to the petitioning campaign in support of it. Advocates in the state have also complained that rules approved by regulators and signed by Gov. Jim Pillen (R) have rolled back the scope of patient rights contemplated in the initiatives that voters passed.
“It is heartbreaking to watch Pillen, to watch AG Hilgers and to watch the legislature try to strip away access to something that the vast majority of voters in this state have said that they want,” Democratic congressional candidate Denise Powell said alongside Buttigieg last week. “So it’s heartbreaking. I think our folks here deserve better and I hope that eventually people will do the right thing here by the voters,”
Buttigieg, for his part, endorsed marijuana legalization and broad drug decriminalization during his unsuccessful 2020 run for the Democratic presidential nomination.
In 2019, his campaign released a racial justice plan that included policies to legalize cannabis and remove criminal penalties for possession of all drugs.
“We will, on the federal level, eliminate incarceration for drug possession, reduce sentences for other drug offenses and apply these reductions retroactively, legalize marijuana and expunge past convictions,” the plan said.
In a separate plan aimed at addressing mental health issues in the country, the candidate explicitly said he would pursue “decriminalizing all drug possession” during his first term in office if elected.
Buttigieg talked about his drug reform agenda during a visit to a dispensary in Las Vegas in October 2019, which Marijuana Moment attended.
During that trip, the former mayor told Marijuana Moment that doctors at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) should be able to recommend medical cannabis to military veterans. He also said that “legitimate medical use of cannabis should be covered” by health insurance.
He later when on to serve as head of the Department of Transportation (DOT) under President Joe Biden, telling a congressional committee in 2024 that moving cannabis to Schedule III of the federal Controlled Substances Act wouldn’t affect drug testing policies for commercial truckers, noting the department specifically lists marijuana as substance to screen for.
The post Medical Marijuana Has ‘Made A Difference’ For Pete Buttigieg’s Family And For Veterans He Served With In The Military, He Says appeared first on Marijuana Moment.
