With it looking increasingly likely US Vice-President Kamala Harris will be the Democratic candidate for the Presidency in this year’s election, where does she stand on cannabis legalization?
President Joe Biden stepped down from his re-election bid early this week and has placed his support behind Vice-President Kamala Harris.
During her career, Vice-President Harris has regularly come into contact with cannabis related issues. As district attorney in San Francisco between 2004 and 2011 and California’s attorney general between 2011 and 2017, she oversaw prosecutions on cannabis offences.
Since that time, Vice-President Harris’s stint as a senator appears to have softened her stance on prohibition and she has co-sponsored various legislation supporting cannabis. After announcing her presidential bid in January 2019, Harris reportedly said in an interview she was in favor of legalizing marijuana.
That was followed by her co-sponsoring legislation to decriminalize marijuana at the federal level and repair the damage done by the war on drugs with the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement Act, or the MORE Act. The MORE Act of 2019 was followed by reintroduced bills in 2021 and 2023.
More recently and after direction from President Biden in 2022 to the Department of Health and Human Services to review how marijuana is scheduled in the USA, Vice-President Harris stated:
“This is a step forward in correcting the historical injustices of failed drug policies.”
While the subsequent decision-making process by the DEA/DOJ has been taking place, Vice-President Harris has urged the Departments to speed things up and for the outcome to be favourable; stating marijuana’s current status as a Schedule I substance was “absurd”.
There’s nothing to indicate Vice-President Harris would backflip on cannabis policy in the USA if she should ascend to the Presidency. In fact, it appears she is now a stronger ally than ever – but only time will tell.
There’s certainly plenty of support among American voters for cannabis. A Pew Research Center survey conducted in January this year indicated 88% of Americans believe marijuana should be legal for medical or recreational use. 57% said marijuana should be legal for both medical and recreational purposes, while just 11% said it should remain illegal at a federal level.
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