Gary Chambers, a Democratic Senate candidate from Louisiana, released his first campaign video on Tuesday of him smoking a blunt and advocating for marijuana legalization.

The video lasts 37-seconds, which signifies the amount of time between every marijuana arrest.

“I hope this ad works to not only de-stigmatize the use of marijuana but also forces a new conversation that creates the pathway to legalize this beneficial drug and forgive those who were arrested due to outdated ideology,” said Chambers.

The video adds that 7.3 million Americans have been arrested for breaking marijuana laws, and black people are four times as likely to be arrested as white people. He continues that most of the people the police arrest aren’t dealers. They’re just people – like him.

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If he wins the Democratic nomination, Chambers will be running against Republican Sen. John Kennedy who was elected in 2016. The state of Louisiana has 3.1 registered voters, and Kennedy won his seat with just 536,204 votes. The state is 33% black, but they have not had a black person elected to statewide office in nearly 150 years, even though they have a Democratic governor and progressive cities in New Orleans and Baton Rouge. Chambers says Louisiana is posed to flip Senate seats.

“We need the Democratic party to pay attention to Louisiana the same amount as Georgia,” Chambers said. “I smoked a blunt, and now everyone’s talking. I know a bunch of politicians who smoke weed as well as business people. Somebody’s gotta go out there and do it. It’s not so controversial.”

Chambers previously ran in the 2021 election to replace Democratic Rep. Cedric Richmond but came in third. Luke Mixon, another Democrat, said he will also be running for the position against Johnson.

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