VP Harris: No One Should Be In Jail For Weed, How About The 2K Pot Prisoners She Put Away In California?

Vice President Kamala Harris finally addressed marijuana policy issues, a topic she avoided for much of her tenure as California's Attorney General (2004-2010). At a Texas Democratic party reception, Harris spoke about President Joe Biden's recent decision to pardon those incarcerated on prior federal weed convictions, reported Marijuana Moment.

After touching on the appointment of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the VP said, "speaking of the system of justice, we are also changing—y'all might have heard that this week—the federal government's approach to marijuana."

Harris added that "nobody should have to go to jail for smoking weed." 

Pardons Are Not For Everyone

Interestingly, while the president's move is expected to impact 6,500 Americans, the nearly 2,000 people convicted during Harris's tenure in San Francisco will not be affected because their convictions were issued at the the state, not federal level. Between 2004 and 2011, her office prosecuted 1,956 misdemeanor and felony convictions for cannabis possession, growing or sale.

Still, Niki Solis, an attorney in the San Francisco Public Defenders' office, said, "there is no way anyone could say that she was draconian in her pursuit of marijuana cases."

Also, she was the only one to talk about cannabis during the 2020 vice presidential debate. In the televised event in Salt Lake City, Harris reiterated that a Biden-Harris administration would decriminalize cannabis and expunge the records of those with weed-related convictions.

However, the Biden administration has been dodging the question of marijuana decriminalization for years, with Harris saying in a 2021 interview with The San Francisco Chronicle that they've been too busy to deal with the issue in view of the past two years of COVID-related challenges.

"Honestly, right now, we've been focused on getting people food, helping them stay in their apartments or in their homes, getting kids back to school, getting shots into arms," Harris said earlier. "That has been all-consuming."

Photo: Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons, by Lawrence Jackson