Harris acknowledged that criminalization “historically knows what it means and who goes to prison.”
On Monday, Vice President Kamala Harris announced support for legalizing recreational marijuana use at the federal level.
The Democratic presidential candidate appeared as a guest on the sports podcast “All the Smoke” and shared his views on the issue.
“I think we're at a point where we have to understand that we need to legalize this and stop criminalizing this behavior,” Harris said.
She says the idea of legalizing marijuana is not “new” to her.
“I've felt for a long time that it needs to be legalized,” Harris explained.
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New York State Sen. Chuck Schumer said, “It's time for Congress to wake up” about changing marijuana laws.
Harris also discussed how this criminalization of drug sales and use disproportionately targets Black communities. Black people use drugs at the same rate as white people, but are arrested for marijuana-related crimes four times as often.
“We know what (criminalizing marijuana) has historically meant and who has gone to prison,” Harris said.
Harris has expressed support for legalizing recreational marijuana use in recent years, but was vague about legalization in 2016.
As a U.S. senator in 2018, Harris co-sponsored a bill with Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) to expunge past marijuana-related offenses and legalize recreational use of the drug. She expressed support for a similar move as a presidential candidate in the 2020 Democratic primary.
However, as a Senate candidate in 2016, she took no position on marijuana legalization, even though voters in her home state of California were considering passing a ballot initiative to legalize marijuana. Ta. Harris campaigned against a similar bill as a candidate for attorney general in 2010, saying she supported medical use of marijuana but would not legalize its recreational use.
As San Francisco's district attorney, Harris' office oversaw nearly 2,000 marijuana convictions, most of which resulted in convictions that did not result in prison time.
Despite this history, Harris' current stance on marijuana legalization goes beyond President Joe Biden's actions on the issue. Earlier this year, his administration moved marijuana from Schedule I designation (the most highly regulated drug, with “no currently recognized medical use and high potential for abuse”) to Schedule III. , which is less regulated. However, the plan did not call for federal legalization.
Harris is also ahead of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on legalization. President Trump has said he will vote for Florida to allow recreational drug use, but he does not support federal drug legalization (including calling for the death penalty for drug traffickers). He takes a strict anti-drug stance. This suggests he won't be changing his mind about marijuana use on a national level anytime soon.
A majority of Americans support legalizing marijuana. For example, a Gallup poll from last November found that 70% of voters supported full legalization of marijuana, while only 29% wanted it to remain illegal.
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