Marijuana reform advocates want Vice President Kamala Harris to apologize for locking up people for marijuana use and possession, even as she tries to rehabilitate her image as a compassionate reformer.
Harris held a roundtable with reform advocates at the White House on Friday, calling for criminal justice reform on the issue.
“No one should go to jail for smoking weed!” she said at the event with rapper Fat Joe and others.
However, marijuana reform advocates say Harris’ work on reform is hypocritical.
As San Francisco’s district attorney, she oversaw more than 1,900 convictions for marijuana use or possession, according to public records. Harris also opposed the legalization of marijuana for recreational use until she ran for California’s Senate seat in 2015.
“She has absolutely no moral authority whatsoever to speak on this issue,” marijuana legal reform advocate Steve DeAngelo told DailyMail.com after Harris’ event at the White House.
“She has no right to talk about cannabis other than to apologize for her hypocrisy.”
US Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a roundtable discussion on marijuana reform at the White House
Rapper Fat Joe joined Harris to talk about marijuana criminal justice reform
Furthermore, during her 2010 campaign for attorney general of California, Harris opposed a ballot proposal that would legalize marijuana, leading to a major defeat for the movement.
Advocates like DeAngelo understand why President Joe Biden and Harris are highlighting the popular issue ahead of the 2024 election, but urged them to actually do something that would have a critical impact.
“They’re handing out cookie crumbs when they could actually be helping people in a very serious way,” Jason Ortiz, the director of Strategic Initiatives for the Last Prisoner Project, told DailyMail.com.
Ortiz said that despite Biden’s federal pardons of thousands of marijuana convictions in 2022, “zero cannabis prisoners” had actually been released from prison as a result of his action. (The pardon list applied to individuals who were already out of prison.)
The Last Prisoner Project is advocating for Biden to use his clemency power to release 3,000 federal cannabis prisoners, and plans to mobilize a protest outside the White House in April to raise awareness of the issue.
Ortiz described the Harris-hosted event at the White House as “a bit of a slap in the face” for advocates, even as he appreciated her using her platform as vice president to raise the issue. But he called on Biden and Harris to do more.
He said an apology from Harris would mean a lot, especially as someone who was part of the problem for so many years.
“Her approach, her talking points and comments on this issue ring a little bit hollow, especially for the people who are still incarcerated and likely incarcerated under her regime in California,” Ortiz said.
Legal reform advocates also prefer to use the word “cannabis” to talk about marijuana use, using the scientific definition to describe the plant.
Flanked by American musician Fat Joe (L) and Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear (R), US Vice President Kamala Harris (C) speaks during a roundtable discussion on marijuana reform
Steve DeAngelo is an advocate for cannabis legalization and criminal justice reform
DeAngelo described the Harris event as a “cynical and pathetic display of political hypocrisy.”
“Kamala Harris has been trying to play both sides of the fence on this issue for years and years and years,” he said.
When he ran for re-election in 2014, only Harris laughed when reporters asked her if she supported legal marijuana.
And during her campaign for president, Harris laughed during a 2019 interview with The Breakfast Club when she revealed her own marijuana use.
‘I have. And I inhaled. I did inhale,” she said, admitting that she smoked “a joint” in college. ‘It’s been a long time, but yes. I just delivered news!’