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Cory Booker Spurns ‘Presidential Candidates … Bragging About Their Pot Use’

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David Krayden Ottawa Bureau Chief
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Democratic New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker may want to legalize marijuana, but he doesn’t think presidential candidates should be “bragging about their pot use.”

Booker was being interviewed Monday night on MSNBC’s “Hardball” on a variety of issues when he suggested it wasn’t right for “senators” or officials seeking higher office to laugh about their cannabis experiences when many pot users have criminal records for smoking marijuana.

Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) speaks at his “Conversation with Cory” campaign event at the Nevada Partners Event Center on February 24, 2019 in North Las Vegas, Nevada. Booker is campaigning for the 2020 Democratic nomination for president. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

“We have presidential candidates — senators — bragging about their pot use while there are kids who can’t get a job because they have a nonviolent offense,” Booker said. (RELATED: Senator Wants To Legalize Weed Nationally)

The presidential candidates that Booker cited are most likely Democratic California Sen. Kamala Harris and Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who both indicated that they have experimented with marijuana.

Harris told “The Breakfast Club” in early February that she smoked pot during her university days.

“Look, I joke about it, half-joking, half of my family is from Jamaica,” Harris said, “Are you kidding me? And I did inhale.”

US Senators Cory Booker (L) and Kamala Harris (R) chat on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, September 27, 2018. (Photo SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images)

US Senators Cory Booker (L) and Kamala Harris (R) chat on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, Sept. 27, 2018. (Photo SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images)

She even remembered listening to Snoop Dog while toking, even though that memory caused a stir on social media because the rapper didn’t come along until Harris had already graduated from Howard University in 1989.

As for Sanders, his marijuana “recollection” on “The Breakfast Club” didn’t include any music from The Bryds or The Beatles.

“I nearly coughed my brains out, so it’s not my cup of tea,” he said.

Despite the experience apparently being a bummer, Sanders reiterated his support for legalizing recreational cannabis during the interview. (RELATED: The Key To Winning In 2020 Will Be Properly Explaining Socialism, Says Bernie Sanders)

Last weekend, during a town hall meeting in Davenport, Iowa, Booker also made a statement suggesting that smoking pot is no laughing matter while “poor people and — way disproportionately — people of color” have rap sheets for smoking pot.

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