Bernie Sanders

Bernard Sanders was born on September 8, 1941, in Brooklyn, New York, into a Jewish family of Polish descent. The son of an immigrant paint salesman, he grew up in a modest apartment in Flatbush and developed a keen political awareness at an early age, shaped by the social inequalities he observed around him. He attended the University of Chicago, where he became involved in the civil rights movement in the 1960s, participating in marches and sit-ins against racial segregation.

An Unconventional Political Career

Bernie Sanders moved to Vermont in the 1960s and began a political career outside the two major U.S. parties. He was elected mayor of Burlington in 1981 as an independent, then to the House of Representatives in 1990 and to the Senate in 2006—remaining officially independent throughout his career while caucusing with the Democrats.

His two campaigns for the Democratic presidential nomination—in 2016 against Hillary Clinton and in 2020 against Joe Biden—catapulted him onto the international stage and made him the best-known representative of American democratic socialism. His proposals—Medicare for All, free college, and a higher minimum wage—are rallying a generation of young American voters.

The first presidential candidate to propose federal legalization

Bernie Sanders is the first serious candidate for the U.S. presidency to have made federal cannabis legalization a central part of his platform, starting with his 2016 campaign. His position goes beyond mere decriminalization—he proposes expunging the criminal records of those convicted of cannabis-related offenses and reinvesting tax revenue from the legal industry into the communities most affected by the war on drugs.

For Sanders, the legalization of cannabis is inextricably linked to social and racial justice: U.S. statistics show that African Americans are arrested and imprisoned for cannabis offenses at disproportionately higher rates than whites, despite similar levels of use.

A stance consistent with his values

Bernie Sanders’ stance on cannabis is part of a coherent political vision centered on social justice, reducing inequality, and challenging corporate interests. He regularly criticizes the pharmaceutical industry, which opposes the legalization of medical cannabis to protect its markets, and denounces the judicial system for imprisoning cannabis users while legal cannabis companies make billions.

His photo wearing mittens in front of a «Feel the Bern» sign at Joe Biden’s inauguration in January 2021 became one of the most viral memes in the history of the internet—an unexpected symbol of
the worldwide popularity of an 80-year-old senator from Vermont.