Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic nominee for vice president, declined to endorse nationwide marijuana legalization in a recent interview.
Instead, Walz, the first top-ticket candidate for a major party to have signed an adult-use legalization bill into law, told Spectrum News that legalization “is an issue for the states.”
Walz declined to answer when asked directly if “marijuana should be legalized across the U.S.”
“Well, I think it’s an issue for states on some of those, and that’s the way the states have done it,” he told the news outlet after his Saturday rally in Superior, Wisconsin,
Minnesota is a key part of the so-called “blue wall” in the Upper Midwest that the Democratic presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, will need to win to be elected in November.
Under a bill that Walz signed into law last year, Minnesota became the 23rd state to legalize adult-use marijuana.
But Walz declined to mention that part of his record, instead staking out a noncommittal middle ground that’s nearly identical to his Republican counterpart, Ohio Sen. JD Vance.
Vance similarly steered clear of the issue when Ohio voters decisively legalized adult use last November.
Vance and Walz are scheduled for a debate on Tuesday.
Both VP candidates lag behind the Republican presidential candidate, former president Donald Trump, who earlier this month endorsed an adult-use legalization measure in Florida, where he resides and will cast a ballot.
Trump has said he supports the Biden administration’s ongoing process to reclassify marijuana from a Schedule 3 controlled substance to Schedule 1.
Marijuana reform has been largely stalled in a Congress that has been historically unproductive.
