Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) in his first-ever campaign for the Senate made the legalization of all drug use one of the cornerstones of his policy platform.
Recruited in a 1972 special election as the Senate candidate for Vermont’s Liberty Union Party, Sanders promised that if elected, “All laws relating to prohibition of abortion, birth control, homosexual relations, and the use of drugs would be done away with,” the Rutland Daily Herald reported in December 1971.
“In a free society, individuals and not government have the right to decide what is best for their own lives, as long as their actions do not harm others,” Sanders said during the campaign for the seat he would eventually win in 2006.
As a candidate with the Liberty Union Party—today Vermont’s fourth-largest party—Sanders and fellow House candidate Doris Lake pushed a platform well outside the mainstream of American thought, even in the 1970s. For Sanders and Lake, the drug issue came down to personal autonomy: “All the issues are really related to individual rights—the right of a man or woman to control his or her own life,” Lake told the Daily Herald. – READ MORE