Kamala & Cannabis: Setting the Record Straight

The presumptive Democratic nominee for president, Joe Biden, announced his running mate on Aug. 11 – first-term California senator and former state attorney general Kamala Harris.For cannabis advocates, this can only represent progress. While Biden has come to support decriminalization in recent years, Harris is today an advocate of full legalization at the federal level.However, Harris has also taken criticism for her perceived compromises and even embracing prohibitionism in the past. What’s the real story? Evolution in the Right Direction Where cannabis and drug enforcement are concerned, Harris has a decidedly mixed record, but she has been evolving in the right direction. This question burst into the public eye last July, at the Democratic candidates’ debate in Detroit. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (who just got primaried out in her Hawaii district) charged that as California’s top prosecutor, Harris had “put over 1,500 people in jail for marijuana violations.”  Well, not exactly. A fact-check by the San Jose Mercury News called this a “highly misleading statistic.” The Mercury News noted that “the attorney general’s office doesn’t directly prosecute the vast majority of drug cases in the state. That’s up to the individual district attorneys in each county, and it’s wrong to say Harris put those people in jail.” Not that Harris is above criticism here. In her time as San Francisco district attorney – the first public office she held, elected in 2003 – Harris oversaw more than 1,900 cannabis convictions. She convicted on marijuana charges at a higher rate than her very progressive predecessor, Terence Hallinan.It was also during her time as…

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