Gary Chambers is running for a Senate seat in Louisiana.
Progressive activist and Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Gary Chambers Jr. smokes marijuana in a field in New Orleans while talking about marijuana reform in his first campaign ad.
On Jan. 1, smokeable medical marijuana became legal in Louisiana under certain conditions. But the use of cannabis has been a question asked of politicians for decades.
The Office of Personnel Management in 2021 released a memo stating past marijuana use should not be the sole reason a candidate for a government position should be deemed unfit.
The government’s shift on marijuana use follows the change in Americans’ views on the drug. A Pew Research Center survey in April found that 91% of Americans believed marijuana should be legalized. Sixty percent told Pew that legalization should be for both recreational and medicinal usage.
Also last year, the New Orleans City Council pardoned 10,000 cases of marijuana possession for anyone convicted after 2010.
Chambers, who has never been arrested, ended the ad saying, “Most of the people police are arresting aren’t dealers, but rather people with small amounts of pot, just like me.”
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