Happy 420! Just one day before the great cannabis holiday, Indiana Senate candidate Thomas McDermott released his marijuana legalization ad online.
The video starts with McDermott lighting something that looks like a marijuana joint and smoking it. To promote the ad, the mayor of Hammond tweeted the following:
“Even on #420day not many Senate candidates admit to having smoked weed. I’ve been thinking a lot about whether to launch this video where I light up. It’s an issue that’s personal & important to me & so many.#LegalizeIt”
Considering that cannabis is still illegal in Indiana, as the bill for its legalization didn’t pass the Republican-dominated General Assembly, the video for the ad had to be filmed in Illinois, where cannabis is legal for both medical and recreational use.
McDermott is supposed to compete with incumbent Republican Sen. Todd Young in November. Will his marijuana legalization efforts provide him with enough support? It remains to be seen.
This isn't the first time one senate candidate openly smoked weed as part of a campaign ad. Democrat Gary Chambers, who is seeking a U.S. Senate seat from Louisiana, released a campaign ad in February in which he smokes a sizable blunt while sitting in an armchair looking cool. Nevertheless, Chambers was serious about the harms of cannabis criminalization.
“Black people are four times more likely to be arrested for marijuana laws than white people,” Chambers said, quoting ACLU statistics. “States waste $3.7 billion enforcing marijuana laws every year. Most of the people police are arresting aren’t dealers, but rather people with small amounts of pot, just like me.”
Will their openness and effort achieve the higher goal, and if so, when - is yet to be seen.
Photo: Courtesy of Elsa Olofsson on Unsplash
