Harris says she backs legalizing marijuana, going further than Biden

Vice President Harris reaffirmed her support for legalizing marijuana Monday, speaking up on the issue publicly for the first time she became 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 said during a nearly hourlong interview on the sports and culture podcast “All the Smoke” released Monday. 

“I just feel strongly people should not be going to jail for smoking weed,” she told hosts Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson. “And we know historically what that has meant and who has gone to jail.” 

The vice president 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 evolved over the years. 

She has been criticized for aggressively prosecuting marijuana-related crimes when she was San Francisco’s district attorney and California’s attorney general. She also spoke out against Proposition 19, the failed 2010 California ballot measure to legalize and regulate marijuana.  

As a senator, Harris co-sponsored legislation to end the federal prohibition of marijuana. When she was running for president in 2019, she called for expunging nonviolent marijuana-related criminal offenses, something the Biden administration has now implemented.  

On April 20 this year, Harris posted on the social platform X that nobody “should have to go to jail for smoking weed” and said that “we must continue to change our nation’s approach to marijuana.” 

Earlier this year, the Biden administration also announced it started on the formal rulemaking process to reschedule marijuana from a Schedule I designation to a Schedule III designation. But President Biden has stopped short of calling for full legalization.

When former President Trump recently said he supported an initiative to legalize recreational use of marijuana in Florida, Harris’s campaign spokesman dismissed it as “blatant pandering.”  

But Harris had not previously mentioned marijuana since launching her campaign. There is no reference to it on her campaign website, and she avoided answering specific questions about her position as recently as last week.

Democratic vice presidential nominee Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz also recently dodged the question of legalization, telling Spectrum News he thinks it’s an issue that should be left to individual states.