Philly420: The DNC and marijuana

Chris Goldstein is a South Jersey-based marijuana activist

Cannabis reform has received first-round approval to be included in the official platform of the Democratic National Committee. The addition could be finalized with a vote by delegates during the party convention July 25-28 in Philadelphia.

"We believe that the states should be laboratories of democracy on the issue of marijuana, and those states that want to decriminalize marijuana should be able to do so. We support policies that will allow more research to be done on marijuana, as well as reforming our laws to allow legal marijuana businesses to exist without uncertainty. And we recognize our current marijuana laws have had an unacceptable disparate impact, with arrest rates for marijuana possession among African-Americans far outstripping arrest rates among whites despite similar usage rates."