Democrats are embracing legal marijuana. Why is Biden reluctant to fully join the party?

As Democrats rally around marijuana legalization, President Joe Biden remains hesitant to fully embrace the idea, which some advocates say may be wasting an opportunity to appeal to a wide variety of voters.

“It’s an enormously powerful public policy lever,” said Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, a Democrat who is running for U.S. Senate in the key swing state on a platform of marijuana legalization.

Fetterman called marijuana legalization the “big bazooka” that both Biden and then-President Donald Trump failed to use in the hotly contested 2020 election. Democrats shouldn’t repeat that mistake in future elections, he said.

“Whoever owns legal weed nationally, it’s all gravy. There’s no downside. None. When South Dakota democratically votes for it, in what circles is this controversial?” Fetterman said, noting that voters in deep red South Dakota approved recreational marijuana in the same year the state went strongly for Trump.

“When South Dakota and California agree on something, that should be a new national law,” said Fetterman, whose own state has not yet approved recreational use.

An April poll from Pew Research found that 60% of adults said marijuana should be legal for both medical and recreational use, 31% said it should be legal for medical use, while 8% supported full prohibition. [Read more at Centre Daily Times]