Texas has a US Senate election this cycle. 2018 saw Beto squaring off against Cruz and 2020 will see Democrat MJ Hegar squaring off against Republican John Cornyn. This is where each candidate stands on marijuana legalization.
John Cornyn
Cornyn has also tried connecting marijuana legalization pushes to ancient tobacco industry advertisements in October of 2019.
“There’s no shortage of people who claim that marijuana has endless health benefits and can help patients struggling from everything from epilepsy to anxiety to cancer treatments,” he said. “This reminds me of some of the advertising we saw from the tobacco industry years ago where they actually claimed public health benefits from smoking tobacco, which we know as a matter of fact were false and that tobacco contains nicotine, an addictive drug, and is implicated with cancers of different kinds.”
This is one of John Cornyn’s recent template email responses about marijuana legalization.
John Cornyn has never been a fan of marijuana. Never a man with an inclination to move towards the legalization of marijuana in any form. He’s the definition of a prohibitionist, just like the Sessions‘.
This can be noted in the letters that Cornyn has sent back via email to inquiring activists.
It is seen in the articles written about him, such as this one by the Dallas Morning News where he states “he worries about “public health consequences,” such as potential harm to young people’s still-forming brains and ill effects on pregnant women and their fetuses. ” Despite youth usage is states that have legalized marijuana have fallen according to a study published by the medical journal JAMA Pediatrics. ”
“Just to be clear we found no effect on teen use following legalization for medical purposes, but evidence of a possible reduction in use following legalization for recreational purposes,” said Mark Anderson, author of the paper.
MJ Hegar
When asked this past week by TCC, MJ Hegar had this to say,
“Whether it’s the impact on our criminal justice system, the benefits for veterans suffering disproportionately from the opioid epidemic and conditions like PTSD, or the tax revenue we could get from it, I think most people agree that we should legalize marijuana,”
Hegar noted during the debate between herself and Democrat candidate Royce West, that people who had basic marijuana charges should be able to be released from prison. That their cases should be evaluated if marijuana was a complicating factor. She noted that we should not be releasing violent offenders early just for this.
During the same debate, West noted that the jails should be opened up with space for hardened criminals and violent offenders. MJ Hegar agreed and noted that keeping marijuana illegal “only boosts cartel profits.”
“I am absolutely for legalizing marijuana. I think we should be expunging the records of those who have been incarcerated for such. And I think that we have a mass incarceration problem, not just in marijuana but in the world,” she said. “I mean, we are one of the top incarcerated countries in the world and that’s not something that I’m very proud of, I don’t know about you.”
During the first Democrat debate, Hegar said the following,
“I just feel like someone has to say, I don’t think Texas should ever do anything following California. I don’t think we should make any policies because California’s leading on that, that’s for sure. I can tell you whether it’s the impact of criminal justice, the tax revenue we could get from it, clearly I think most people agree that we should legalize marijuana. Being a veteran and being in a community where people suffer, whether it’s from high suicide rates, or PTSD or the opioid epidemic, this is something that marijuana could help in every chapter. And the reason I think it needs to go beyond medical is that most veterans are not self-identifying and seeking treatment and doing the necessary things that it would take to actually get a prescription.”
I know who’s getting my vote