On Monday, Vice President Harris reiterated her support for marijuana legalization, marking her first public statement on the matter since becoming the Democratic nominee.
“I believe we’ve reached a point where we must legalize it and stop criminalizing this behavior,” Harris stated during an almost hour-long interview on the sports and culture podcast “All the Smoke,” released on Monday.
“I strongly feel that people shouldn’t be jailed for smoking weed,” she told hosts Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson. “We know the historical implications and who has been incarcerated.”
The vice president emphasized that her support for marijuana legalization is “not a new stance for me. I’ve long believed we need to legalize it.”
Harris’s perspective on marijuana has shifted over time.
She faced criticism for her rigorous prosecution of marijuana-related offenses during her tenure as San Francisco’s district attorney and California’s attorney general. She also opposed Proposition 19, the unsuccessful 2010 California ballot initiative to legalize and regulate marijuana.
As a senator, Harris co-sponsored legislation to end the federal ban on marijuana. During her 2019 presidential campaign, she advocated for expunging nonviolent marijuana-related criminal records, a policy the Biden administration has since enacted.
On April 20 this year, Harris posted on the social platform X, asserting that no one “should have to go to jail for smoking weed” and emphasized the need to “continue changing our nation’s approach to marijuana.”
Earlier this year, the Biden administration announced it had begun the formal rulemaking process to reclassify marijuana from a Schedule I to a Schedule III substance. However, President Biden has not fully endorsed legalization.
When former President Trump recently expressed support for legalizing recreational marijuana use in Florida, Harris’s campaign spokesman dismissed it as “blatant pandering.”
Despite this, Harris had not previously addressed marijuana since launching her campaign. Her campaign website lacks any mention of it, and she avoided answering specific questions about her stance as recently as last week.
Democratic vice presidential nominee Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz also recently sidestepped the legalization question, telling Spectrum News he believes it should be a state-level decision.