Vice President Kamala Harris may have said Biden’s too focused on COVID to think about cannabis legalization right now, but a new, powerful ally in the fight has emerged – and he’s no friend of the President: billionaire Charles Koch.
A rapper, a billionaire and an activist walk into a bar…
In an interview with POLITICO, criminal justice reform advocate Weldon Angelos explains that the newly formed Cannabis Freedom Alliance came out of a Zoom call between himself, Snoop Dogg and Koch — who surprised the activist by saying he supports legalizing all drugs.
“I had known that his position on drugs was very libertarian,” he said. “I just didn’t know that he supported the legalization of all drugs.”
Secret Weapon?
Koch and his influential Americans for Prosperity organization will play a key role in convincing Republican senators to vote in favour of Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s forthcoming cannabis legislation. Angelos estimates they’ll need 10 to 12 Republicans to step up: “With Koch’s influence, I think that’s likely a possibility,” he said.
Cannabis crossing party lines
Previous efforts to legalize cannabis in the US have been dominated by left-wing organizations, but the Cannabis Freedom Alliance is non-partisan. Along with the Koch brothers’ Americans for Prosperity group, the Alliance includes libertarian think tank the Reason Foundation, anti-incarceration organization The Weldon Project, and the trade-focused Global Alliance for Cannabis Conference.
Great to see weed bringing people together.
