Vice President Harris reaffirmed her assist for legalizing marijuana Monday, talking up on the difficulty publicly for the primary time she turned the Democratic nominee.
“I just think we have come to a point where we have to understand that we need to legalize it and stop criminalizing this behavior,” Harris stated throughout a virtually hourlong interview on the sports activities and tradition podcast “All the Smoke” launched Monday.
“I just feel strongly people should not be going to jail for smoking weed,” she advised hosts Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson. “And we know historically what that has meant and who has gone to jail.”
The vp added that supporting marijuana legalization is “not a new position for me. I have felt for a long time we need to legalize it.”
Harris’s views on marijuana have advanced through the years.
She has been criticized for aggressively prosecuting marijuana-related crimes when she was San Francisco’s district legal professional and California’s legal professional common. She additionally spoke out towards Proposition 19, the failed 2010 California poll measure to legalize and regulate marijuana.
As a senator, Harris co-sponsored laws to finish the federal prohibition of marijuana. When she was working for president in 2019, she known as for expunging nonviolent marijuana-related felony offenses, one thing the Biden administration has now applied.
On April 20 this yr, Harris posted on the social platform X that no person “should have to go to jail for smoking weed” and stated that “we must continue to change our nation’s approach to marijuana.”
Earlier this yr, the Biden administration additionally introduced it began on the formal rulemaking course of to reschedule marijuana from a Schedule I designation to a Schedule III designation. However President Biden has stopped wanting calling for full legalization.
When former President Trump not too long ago stated he supported an initiative to legalize leisure use of marijuana in Florida, Harris’s marketing campaign spokesman dismissed it as “blatant pandering.”
However Harris had not beforehand talked about marijuana since launching her marketing campaign. There isn’t a reference to it on her marketing campaign web site, and he or she prevented answering particular questions on her place as not too long ago as final week.
Democratic vice presidential nominee Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz additionally not too long ago dodged the query of legalization, telling Spectrum Information he thinks it is a difficulty that needs to be left to particular person states.
