Kamala Harris Says Biden Admin Won’t Half-Step Marijuana Reform But Pledges Mere Decrim

Democratic vice presidential nominee Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) said on Monday that a Biden administration would not be taking incremental half-steps toward criminal justice reform if elected—but she also touted marijuana policies they would pursue that advocates argue fit that exact description. The senator said during a virtual town hall event that, under a Biden-Harris administration, “we will decriminalize the use of marijuana and automatically expunge all marijuana use convictions and incarceration for drug use alone.” “This is no time—from, I think, our collective perspective—this is no time for half-steppin’,” she added. “This is no time for incrementalism. We need to deal with the system, and there needs to be significant change in the design of the system so that we can support working people, so that we can fight for the dignity of people, so that we can make sure that all people have equal access to opportunity and to justice.” Of course, when it comes to cannabis reform, simply removing criminal penalties for marijuana consumption and expunging prior records is widely considered by advocates as a half-step. Actually legalizing cannabis at the federal level would be closer to a full step, and it’s a policy change that Harris advocated for prior to joining the Biden campaign. “While I applaud Kamala Harris’s focus on criminal justice reform, and in particular expungement and decriminalization of cannabis offenses at the federal level, true reform will require more,” Steve Hawkins, executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project, told Marijuana Moment. “Removing criminal…

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Source : MJ moment
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