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Georgia Senate Races Will Decide 'Whether Weed Gets Legalized,' Cory Booker Says

Sen. Booker joined the latest episode of "Cari & Jemele (Won't) Stick to Sports," airing Thursday on VICE on TV.
Cameron Joseph
Washington, US

In case Georgia’s Senate races weren’t high-stakes enough, legal weed is also on the line.

The pair of runoff races will determine which party controls the Senate—and whether marijuana legalization has any chance in the coming Congress, Sen. Cory Booker said on VICE’s Cari & Jemele (Won't) Stick to Sports on Thursday.

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“Look, if you're in Georgia right now, you will control whether weed gets legalized or not, based upon whether you go out and vote,” Booker said. 

The New Jersey senator is one of Congress’ most vocal supporters of marijuana legalization, and has championed the Marijuana Justice Act, which would fully legalize marijuana at the federal level and expunge past convictions for marijuana use or possession. 

“If Democrats win those two seats, I am pretty confident that you will see maybe not the major legislation that I seek, but you're going to see a relaxing—even Joe Biden said he wants to decriminalize it—so the relaxing of laws that better allow states to do what they want to do,” Booker said in an interview that will air Thursday night.

Earlier this month, the House made history and passed a bill that would decriminalize marijuana at the federal level and officially allow states to decide their own pot policies. But it stands zero chance of passing the Senate as long as Republicans maintain control.

David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, Georgia’s current GOP senators, both oppose relaxing marijuana restrictions. The Democrats running against them, Jon Ossoff and Rev. Raphael Warnock, both support reform.

Booker may seem an unlikely champion of marijuana reform—he said on the show that he’s not only never smoked, he’s never even drunk alcohol. But he’s long championed de-incarceration and prison reform as critical civil rights issues, as the war on drugs has put Black and brown people behind bars at a disproportionate rate and devastated minority communities.

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“I'm in this for the justice issues and the racial justice issues,” Booker said. “If you're Black in America you know there's no difference in your usage of pot than a white American, but you're like four times more likely to be arrested for it and have your life ruined, have a criminal conviction.”

Even if the Democrats pull off wins in the Jan. 5 runoffs, full marijuana legalization faces an uphill battle in the Senate. Only two Republicans — Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) — have voiced support, and a number of more-moderate Democrats, including Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), still oppose it. 

But there’s plenty Congress can do short of full legalization to make it easier for states to govern their own policies, allow dispensaries and growers access to the federal banking system, officially allow medical marijuana use (it’s long been legal at the state level but is still technically banned federally), and change sentencing laws to keep more people out of jail.

Watch Booker discuss weed politics, his new bill to protect college athletes, whether college sports should be happening at all right now, and whether he’s planning to pop the question to girlfriend Rosario Dawson anytime soon on Thursday’s episode of “Cari & Jemele (Won't) Stick to Sports, airing on VICE on TV.