Marijuana Industry Would Vote for Clinton Over Trump

Following two weeks of national political party conventions and polls to measure how the presidential candidates fared, Democrat Hillary Clinton has about a seven-point lead over Republican Donald Trump, according to FiveThirtyEight. The marijuana industry likes Clinton even more.

According to a survey conducted on July 27 and 28 by Marijuana Business Daily, Hillary Clinton gets the support of 43% of cannabis industry executives and professionals, compared with 26.1% support for Donald Trump. Gary Johnson, who was CEO and president of Cannabis Sativa before commencing his run as the Libertarian candidate for president, got the nod from 15.5% of those surveyed. The remaining 5% or so either named someone else or weren’t sure.

Among investors in the cannabis industry, both Clinton and Trump scored a little better — 45.9% for Clinton and 37.8% for Trump — while Johnson’s total dropped to 8.1%.

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The results among industry executives and professionals should come as no surprise. The Democratic party and Clinton have said that marijuana should be removed from the Schedule I drug list and that a “reasoned pathway for future legalization” should be developed and adopted.

The Republican party rejected a proposal to endorse medical marijuana use as part of the party’s official platform. This is the party platform’s single mention of marijuana:

The progress made over the last three decades against drug abuse is eroding, whether for cultural reasons or for lack of national leadership. In many jurisdictions, marijuana is virtually legalized despite its illegality under federal law. At the other end of the drug spectrum, heroin use nearly doubled from 2003 to 2013, while deaths from heroin have quadrupled. All this highlights the continuing conflicts and contradictions in public attitudes and public policy toward illegal substances. Congress and a new administration should consider the long-range implications of these trends for public health and safety and prepare to deal with the problematic consequences.

Neither political party’s vice-presidential nominee has supported either medical or recreational marijuana use. Republican Mike Pence’s positions have been compared to “reefer madness silliness,” while Democrat Tim Kaine was one of 22 U.S. Senators to earn an “F” on a congressional scorecard released by the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML).

According to Marijuana Business Daily:

[Donald] Trump does not have an official policy position on marijuana and it’s often hard to tell where he stands on issues. He said earlier this year that he is “in favor” of medical marijuana “100%,” but has also said several times that he believes recreational marijuana “is bad’ and is “causing a lot of problems in Colorado.”

Libertarian candidate Johnson garners about twice as much support from the cannabis industry players as he does from the U.S. population at large, but he still finishes a distant third in the three-person race.

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