A Republican senator says marijuana is a “gateway drug,” and Democrats’ moves to legalize it reflect “pro-criminal, anti-American policies” that will “stimulate more crime on American streets.” He also argued that cannabis banking legislation “facilitates an entire infrastructure and an ecosystem for more drug usage in America.”
Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-TN) said during an interview on Thursday that he’s opposed to both comprehensive legalization legislation such as the bill Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and 17 other Democrats reintroduced this week, as well as modest reform like the Secure and Fair Enforcement Regulation (SAFER) Banking Act.
“What the Joe Biden administration—what Leader Schumer—is trying to do is basically stimulate more crime on American streets,” Hagerty said. “Here we have Chuck Schumer basically lowering the barriers for gateway drugs like marijuana, and it’s going to damage society, and this is exactly what Democrats have been pushing. This is not good for America.”
He added that the push for cannabis legalization is an attempt to “incentivize more drug usage in America.”
Asked for his thoughts on the SAFER Banking Act to simply protect financial institutions that work with state-licensed marijuana businesses, the senator said it “facilitates an entire infrastructure, an ecosystem, for more drug usage in America.”
“We need to be constraining drug usage, not encouraging it,” he said.
Hagerty said that Democrats’ marijuana reform efforts are “completely political,” designed to shore up support from a “small fragment” of voters who care about cannabis policy ahead of the November election.
“What they’re trying to do is cobble together a very disparate group of people to vote for Joe Biden,” he said. “Nobody likes his overall policies. If you look at American sentiment, everyone says that America is moving in the wrong direction. But what they’re trying to do is pick off minor issues like this—encouraging drug abuse, frankly. It’s obscene that this would be happening.”
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