Democratic Vice-presidential candidate Kamala Harris has recently publicly stated that she’s in favor of marijuana legalization – currently a key issue to consider in her presidential campaign.
On the All the Smoke podcast – co-hosted by former NBA players Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson – Harris affirmed that marijuana prohibition should be abolished. She explained, ” just think we have come to a point where we have to understand that we need to legalize it and stop criminalizing this behavior” after repeating that she believed a person should not be imprisoned simply for smoking weed.
Some readers will note that Harris’ view of marijuana has evolved over the course of her career. She has tried more than 1,900 marijuana-related cases during her tenure as District Attorney in San Francisco. When Harris was running for attorney general of California in 2010, she fought Proposition 19, which would have legalized pot for recreational purposes. Four years later, when pressed on legalization in her re-election campaign, she laughed it off.
In her re-election as Attorney General in 2014, Harris deemed marijuana legalization “inevitable,” but pointed out that it would have been “irresponsible” to speak so forth as California’s “top cop.” She laughed casually, adding, “I don’t have any moral opposition to it or anything like that. Half my family’s from Jamaica.”
By 2018, Harris had switched sides, agreeing with marijuana legalization at the federal level and signing onto a decriminalizing bill in the Senate. And in her 2020 presidential campaign, Harris took things even further, saying when speaking to Charlemagne the God on The Breakfast Club, “Listen, I think it gives a lot of people joy. And we need more joy.” She did go so far as to say she had consumed marijuana, “I have. And I inhaled. I did inhale,” she continues, ‘It was a long time ago, but yes.”
While Harris pushed marijuana in a somewhat moderate way when she was chosen as Joe Biden’s running mate and would not support legalization but decriminalization, she nonetheless endorsed Biden. “I think it is good that he is in that place of understanding that, at the very least, it should not be a criminal matter,” she said in July 2020.
Ever since, Harris has called for decriminalization time and again, stating “no one should be sent to jail for smoking weed” at events. She even met with rapper Fat Joe at the White House in 2024 to discuss the issue of incarceration of marijuana users.
Nevertheless, Harris is not without some criticism from marijuana activists who have accused her of taking it to the extreme with past acts. “She absolutely has no moral authority to speak on this issue whatsoever,” said the marijuana reform activist Steve DeAngelo.
Harris herself has often seized this topic with a laugh. When the comedian Jimmy Kimmel told her about cannabis plant called “Kamala Kush,” she was a bit surprised and responded, “Really? Seriously? I didn’t know that” and joked, “I’m not touching that”.
Harris has also dubbed prior anti-marijuana policies “failed,” and promised money would go instead to address the opioid crisis, mental health and addiction to opiates such as fentanyl. “Getting more resources into mental health and mental health care, right? That’s a smarter way,” she said.
Harris’ transformation from enforcer to advocate has drawn both praise and criticism. As the debate over marijuana legalization continues to play out on the national stage, her evolving stance will undoubtedly be a focal point for voters in 2024.