Party Position: https://www.freeweedal.com/

For decades misinformation and outright racism have guided cannabis policy. As a result, we ruined the lives of thousands of Black and brown people caught with cannabis and we’ve wasted billions of dollars criminalizing non-violent cannabis users. Across our nation, states are moving to address past policy errors and generate new jobs and state revenue by legalizing the recreational use of cannabis. Alabama should be next.  

The time to legalize the recreational use of cannabis in Alabama is now.

- Alabama Democratic Party

The ADP’s Recreational Cannabis Legalization

Policy Proposal:

• • Legalize cannabis for recreational use. 
  • Immediately expungement of all non-violent drug offenders, arrested for possession of/use of cannabis. 
  • Earmark state revenue generated through cannabis sales to better fund K-12 public schools and Pre-K, and our state’s "Rainy Day" fund.   
  • Create a growing supply-chain and retailing licensing system prioritizing individuals and communities most impacted by cannabis criminalization.
  • Retract the schedule 1 status of cannabis to make studying its long and short-term effects more reliable. 
  • Replace statutory references to "marijuana" and "marihuana" with cannabis.
  • Require the Alabama Bureau of Labor to publish demographic data on cannabis business owners and employees regularly.
  • Prohibits the denial of state public benefits to a person based on certain cannabis-related conduct or convictions.
  • Creates an 5% excise on cannabis products and requires revenues to be deposited into the trust fund.
  • Create a licensing system that prioritizes providing the communities who have been disproportionately criminalized by failed cannabis to have the first opportunities to secure cannabis-related licenses.

Email: rodger.smitherman@alsenate.gov

Web: http://www.legislature.state.al.us/aliswww/ISD/ALSenator.aspx?OID_SPONSOR=100461&OID_PERSON=1139

Phone: 334-261-0870