MSNBC "All in with Chris Hayes" - Transcript: Marijuana Regulations
Interview
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HAYES: The Democratic Party is starting to catch up to the nation when it comes to the issue of marijuana. Polls show that nearly two in three Americans including a majority of Republicans support legalization and recreational or medicinal use is now allowed in 29 states. My next guest has Co-Sponsored the bill to decriminalize the drug and require federal courts to expunge prior marijuana convictions. Joining me now, Senator Bernie Sanders, Independent of Vermont, good to have you here. You and Cory Booker, I think, are on that -- on that piece of legislation together. It seems like there`s a breakthrough now with the Democratic Party on this issue.
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I), VERMONT: Well, you know, during my campaign, I talked about it. I was one of the many issues that was just too radical. But you know what, prohibition doesn`t work. Studies show that over half the American people smoke marijuana. It is insane to be arresting some 600,000 people a year for possession of marijuana. States are moving forward with decriminalization, legalization. Vermont moved forward with decriminalization. So the time is now to say that we are not going to punish people for smoking marijuana. States want to go forward and legalize it. That is their right.
HAYES: If prohibition doesn`t work though, doesn`t the logic that extend past marijuana?
SANDERS: To --
HAYES: Crack cocaine, heroin, ecstasy. I mean, if the issue is prohibition, they`re all prohibited substances.
SANDERS: In Portugal, I think, has moved in that direction.
HAYES: They have.
SANDERS: You know, let`s take one thing at a time. This is a major step forward. Look, the issue that really hits me here is that you have thousands and thousands of people whose lives have been wrecked because of being arrested for possession of marijuana. They got a criminal record. You`re a young kid, you`re going out to get a job. Boss says you have a record. Well, I do. You can`t get a job. So this is a step forward and I`m proud to support it.
HAYES: Now, you`re also introducing legislation or you have legislation that would allow for criminal penalties or liability for opioid manufacturers, drug companies, correct?
SANDERS: If, if -- this is the story.
HAYES: It seems like there`s a little tension there.
SANDERS: No. Here`s the story. We have, as everybody recognizes, an opioid epidemic in this country. We lose over 60,000 people a year from overdoses, hundreds of thousands of people are suffering from addiction. Here`s the question. The question is, when did the opioid manufacturers know that the product that they were selling to doctors was addictive? There is evidence out there to suggest that in fact, they knew, and they were pushing a product that they knew would cause addiction, suffering, and death. States are suing all over the country on this. The federal government has been way, way, way behind where the states are. You`ll recall that in the 1990s, Congress brought the tobacco manufacturers in front of them and asked them the hard questions. What did you know? When did you know it? We have got to do that with the opioid manufacturers. And if, but I`m not passing a judgment now, but if it is true that these guys were producing and selling a product that they knew was killing people, they have got to be held accountable. Right now, we`re spending as a nation about $70 billion a year to treat the opioid crisis. Those guys are going to -- should not be making billions of dollars here. They have got to help us solve the problem.
HAYES: Does that same logic of where the fault lies in the liability apply to gun manufacturers?
SANDERS: It does. If we know that a gun manufacturer, for example, is loading a whole lot of weapons into a town far more than you would expect, and we know through a straw man process that those guns are going out into the community, into criminals, should they be held liable if we can prove that they knew it, absolutely.
HAYES: Didn`t you support legislation in the other direction?
SANDERS: I am a sponsor and co-sponsor of a bill that deals with that issue. The issue is not should a gun manufacturer be held liable because you make a gun that does what it`s supposed to do. No.
HAYES: That`s the distinction you`re making?
SANDERS: Right. Should a gun -- if they`re dumping guns into an area in a volume that no one thinks what the local population
HAYES: I see.
SANDERS: Yeah, that`s the issue.
HAYES: I`m wanting to talk to you about trade, because, you know, you have been a critic of the kind of trade consensus in this country for a long time.
SANDERS: Yes.
HAYES: And there`s a number of other people, Sherrod Brown is one of those folks. He wrote a book about trade when he was -- and I think it`s fair to say that in some key ways Donald Trump has departed from some of that consensus -- pulled out of the TPP, renegotiating NAFTA. We`ve seen these tariffs
SANDERS: Although he`s claiming he wants to rethink that. I don`t know where he is today.
HAYES: Well, who knows where he is. What do you think of this trade agenda? Is this -- does this look like what you envisioned as the alternative to the consensus you`ve decried?
SANDERS: Trump deserves credit for at least dealing with this issue. Look, the truth is, our trade policy has been a failure. It has cost us millions of decent-paying jobs. We have lost tens of thousands of factories in the last 20 years.
And bottom line, there is companies that are shutting down to find cheap labor in China and in Mexico. Is that an issue that has to be dealt with? Absolutely.
Do we want to demonize the people in Mexico or the people in China, as Trump often does, the answer is no. So we need comprehensive trade policies.
HAYES: But what about -- so a lot of that folks on the industrial base, right, manufacturing.
SANDERS: Yes.
HAYES: But there`s two sides to this. And one of the things we`re seeing now with these tariffs is, you have got a lot of farmers in America who export grains -- you`re from a rural stat You have got soybean shipments that are being impacted. You`ve got sorghum ships that are circling around the Pacific Ocean. Does it -- I guess I wonder, does it make you think about, OK, what does it really look like when we play this out?
SANDERS; Look, trade is a very complicated issue. No one thinks there`s a simple solution. Bottom line is, overall -- and there are exceptions. There are the agricultural sectors, which have done well under various trade policies. By and large, in my view, trade policies have been bad for the middle class and working families of this country and that`s got to change.
You`re never going to come up with a process that works for 100 percent of the people. You`ve got to do the best that you can.
HAYES: Meaning that there`s going to be trade-offs, right?
SANDERS: Absolutely.
HAYES: Even when you start getting in there and messing
SANDERS: Absolutely. Absolutely.
But right now, by and large, we have been losing -- the American people, working people, have been losing.
Here`s the issue when you talk about trade. Trade is a good thing. You want to trade with me? What have you got? I`ll buy it, if it`s a fair praise. No, that`s what trade is.
HAYES: I got a pen and a few papers.
SANDERS: All right.
HAYES: But what is not fair, ultimately, is American workers having to compete against people in Vietnam where the minimum wage is something like 70 cents an hour. That`s just not fair.
So I want to see fair trade, not unfettered free trade.
HAYES: All right, Senator Bernie Sanders who is here in New York City, which is a treat. It`s great to have you here.
SANDERS: Good to be with you, Chris.
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