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September 30, 2024 - 6:00pm
Kamala Harris called for the legalisation of marijuana on a Monday appearance on the All the Smoke podcast.
“We need to legalise it and stop criminalising this behaviour,” she said. “This is not a new position for me. I have felt for a long time we need to legalise it”.
Harris had previously endorsed legalisation during her 2019 primary campaign, but it’s been unclear until this point whether she maintained that stance, given her recent pivot to the centre on other key issues such as healthcare, fracking, and immigration.
The new comments mark a split from the presidential administration in which she’s currently serving. The Biden administration is pursuing marijuana reclassification, which would put the drug in the same class as steroids and ketamine rather than crack cocaine, and supports expunging criminal records for simple possession. However, Joe Biden has never come out in support of legalising recreational use.
It’s a rare pivot to the Left in a campaign that, so far, has taken pains to be perceived as centrist and distance itself from the excesses of Harris’s failed primary campaign. Her past support for single-payer healthcare, a ban on fracking, and the abolition of US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement contributed to her reputation among voters as too liberal. She is now campaigning as a border hawk, and has vowed not to ban fracking or pursue single-payer healthcare.
Donald Trump, too, also appears to be tacking to the Left on marijuana. Earlier this month, the former president came out in support of a Florida ballot initiative legalising recreational marijuana and expressed support for reclassification. “I believe it is time to end needless arrests and incarcerations of adults for small amounts of marijuana for personal use,” he wrote on Truth social.
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SubscribeThis is not a new position for me.
That must be why she warehoused black men in droves over petty drug offenses and occasionally used them as slave labor. This woman will say anything, even when it contradicts her record on a topic.
Spot on.
She can’t speak to policy even on friendly podcasts. Pathetic.
“We need to legalise it and stop criminalising this behaviour,” she said. “This is not a new position for me. I have felt for a long time we need to legalise it”.
I think it’s about time to legalise it in the UK.
If anybody in London is reading please ask starmer to make his new slogan: STARMER FOR STONERS.
No one has a problem with “single payer” healthcare. The problem is the complete banning of the right to buy individual healthcare insurance which Veep Harris has stated in the past to be her goal. She’s a power hungry narcissist who has no actual values besides her own self interest.
It is known.
“It’s a rare pivot to the Left in a campaign that, so far, has taken pains to be perceived as centrist…”
I don’t believe that marijuana legalization is a left-wing issue.
For one thing, from a right-wing perspective there are good libertarian and tenth-amendment arguments for getting rid of the federal marijuana laws. Indeed when SCOTUS upheld the federal medical marijuana ban in Gonzales v. Raich back in 2005, the dissent (by Rehnquist, O’Connor, and Thomas) came from the rightward end of the Court.
Also there are red states, like my home state of Arizona plus solid-red Montana, Missouri, and Ohio that have legalized not just medical but also recreational marijuana. When the issue came up in my state, I (a right-winger) voted yes, and I wrote a substack post at the time explaining my reasoning:
https://twilightpatriot.substack.com/p/why-i-will-be-voting-to-legalize?utm_source=publication-search
I think at this point it is more of a generational issue that a Republicans-vs-Democrats issue. People in my generation either smoke weed themselves, or at least see it as futile to ban it, whichever side of the aisle they are on.