As He Exits Congress, Blumenauer Wants His Party to Embrace Pot Legalization

The long-serving congressman from Portland, who has become the top marijuana advocate on Capitol Hill, believes the issue could boost President Biden’s support with young voters.

As a 23-year-old serving his first term in the Oregon state legislature, Representative Earl Blumenauer cosponsored the first bill in the country to decriminalize small amounts of marijuana.

More than 50 years later, the congressman from Portland is preparing to retire after nearly three decades on Capitol Hill, and mounting a lonely campaign to persuade his fellow Democrats, including President Biden, to press for legalization of marijuana at the federal level as a central plank of their political platforms.

“I have been doing this longer than any other politician in America, and I can say unequivocally, no politician was ever punished for being on the cutting edge of legalization of cannabis,” Mr. Blumenauer, who has become Congress’s top advocate for changing marijuana policy, said in an interview. “This is something every candidate should embrace.”

Mr. Blumenauer has urged officials close to Mr. Biden to make the issue a more prominent part of the president’s re-election message. He argues that legalization is not only good policy, but a potentially “electric” political issue that could help the 81-year-old Mr. Biden appeal to young people who polls show have drifted away from him, and whose backing could be vital to his chances of winning a second term. [Read More @ The NY Times]