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Vice President Kamala Harris visits St. Paul Well being Middle, a clinic that performs abortions, in St. Paul, Minnesota, on Thursday.
Washington
CNN
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Vice President Kamala Harris mentioned Friday that it’s “absurd” and “patently unfair” that marijuana is handled the identical as heroin and different Schedule I medication – and extra severely than fentanyl – beneath federal legislation.
“Marijuana is taken into account as harmful as heroin and extra harmful than fentanyl, which is absurd, to not point out patently unfair,” Harris mentioned throughout a roundtable on the administration’s plans for hashish reform. “I’m certain DEA is working as shortly as doable and can proceed to take action and we stay up for the product of their work.”
The feedback got here on the roundtable on the White Home because the Biden administration hopes that selling modifications lengthy sought by legal justice advocates will assist construct enthusiasm amongst Black voters, youthful voters and a wider array of core Democratic constituencies.
Harris has been touring the nation to awaken the Democratic base concerning the prospect of voting for her and President Joe Biden a second time, together with making appeals to youthful voters.
The administration started the method of reconsidering how marijuana is handled beneath federal legislation simply earlier than the midterms in 2022. Biden pardoned all prior federal offenses for easy marijuana possession and inspired all governors to pardon state offenses. The identical yr, Biden requested US Well being and Human Providers Secretary Xavier Becerra and the legal professional normal to start the executive means of reviewing how marijuana is scheduled beneath federal legislation.
The vice chairman met with musician Fats Joe and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear – and alluded to her personal function in what she described as an unequal legal justice system.
“I imagine that the promise of America contains equal justice beneath the legislation. And for too many, our legal justice system has did not dwell as much as that core precept,” mentioned Harris, who began her political profession as a prosecutor in California.
“And I say that with full information of how this method has labored, together with my expertise as a prosecutor,” she added.
The group attending the roundtable included individuals who have obtained pardons for marijuana-related convictions.
Biden talked about hashish reform in his State of the Union deal with final week.
“Nobody ought to be jailed for merely utilizing or have it on their document,” Biden mentioned in his deal with final week.
Harris repeated comparable sentiments on Friday: “I imagine – I believe all of us at this desk imagine – no one ought to should go to jail for smoking weed,” she mentioned.
“And what we have to do is acknowledge that far too many individuals have been despatched to jail for easy marijuana possession,” Harris added whereas acknowledging how the enforcement of cannabis-related legal guidelines have disproportionately impacted folks of colour.
Harris’ personal emotions on marijuana reform have evolved in line with her career.
In a 2019 interview with “The Breakfast Membership,” Harris admitted to using cannabis in college: “And I inhaled – I did inhale,” Harris advised co-host Charlamagne Tha God in a reference to former President Invoice Clinton’s notorious “didn’t inhale” response to an identical query whereas he was campaigning in 1992.
However as San Francisco’s district legal professional from 2004 to 2011, Harris oversaw scores of marijuana convictions and she or he opposed a failed 2010 effort that will have legalized marijuana in California, the Los Angeles Occasions reported.
She known as for an finish to the federal authorities’s ban on medical hashish in 2015, stopping in need of full legalization.
In her 2019 ebook, Harris wrote that marijuana ought to be legalized.
CNN’s Holmes Lybrand and Kevin Liptak contributed to this report.
