Kamala Harris Calls For Legalizing Marijuana And Ending War On Drugs In New Book

Tom Angell 

All the cool presidential candidates are doing it. Calling for marijuana legalization, that is.

"Something else it's past time we get done is dismantling the failed war on drugs—starting with legalizing marijuana," Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), who is weighing a 2020 presidential campaign, writes in her new book released on Tuesday.

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Over the course of the past several years, supporting the legalization of cannabis has become a mainstream consensus position for Democrats, particularly among the party's likely presidential contenders.


Harris, who as recently as a few years ago laughed off questions about marijuana, is no exception.

"We need to legalize marijuana and regulate it," Harris writes, pointing to racial disparities in cannabis enforcement. "And we need to expunge nonviolent marijuana-related offenses from the records of millions of people who have been arrested and incarcerated so they can get on with their lives."

But the former California state attorney general also says in the new book, "The Truths We Hold: An American Journey," that ending prohibition needs to be done "with eyes wide open, understanding that there is unfinished business when it comes to legalization."

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Harris says that due to the drug's restrictive Schedule I status, not enough research has been done on its effects and that officials need to "invest in a solution" to impaired driving issues, as there is no currently available reliable breathalyzer-like device for cannabis.

When it comes to other drugs, the senator says "we also need to stop treating drug addiction like a public safety crisis instead of what it is: a public health crisis."

"When someone is suffering from addiction, their situation is made worse, not better, by involvement in the criminal justice system," she writes.

It is unclear is Harris is suggesting decriminalizing drugs beyond marijuana, but that does seem to be one potential implication of the suggestion that involving the criminal justice system is harmful when it comes to substance misuse.

All told, the passages mark a significant evolution on cannabis and drug policy for the former prosecutor.

In a 2014 television interview, Harris simply laughed in the face of a journalist who asked about her Republican attorney general opponent's support for legalizing marijuana.

And she declined to support California's cannabis legalization ballot measure that voters went on to approve two years later.

Over the course of 2018, however, the senator came to embrace marijuana policy reform at a time its popularity had soared with Democratic voters and as likely rivals for the party's presidential nomination got on board.

Other potential 2020 Democratic candidates who now support legalization include Sens. Cory Booker, (D-NJ), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA).

In May, Harris signed on as a cosponsor of a Booker-led bill to remove marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act and withhold federal funding from states with discriminatory cannabis enforcement.

“Right now in this country people are being arrested, being prosecuted, and end up spending time in jail or prison all because of their use of a drug that otherwise should be considered legal,” she said at the time.