Vice President Kamala Harris has earned the distinction of being the first presidential candidate to have supported legalizing marijuana federally. Yet she seems to think this is a liability rather than the opportunity it really is.
Harris is missing a moment. Not only would it be good politics for her to champion this cause, but it would be good for the country, too.
There’s been a sea change in public opinion on marijuana legalization — one nearly as stunning as the public’s turnabout on same-sex marriage. Twice as many people support recreational use of marijuana now than did 20 years ago.
Polling shows that 66 percent of voters — including two-thirds of independent voters and more than half of Republicans — support federal legalization. The issue is especially popular among young voters, whom Democrats have been losing in recent years.
With the polls neck and neck, Harris shouldn’t be missing any opportunity to talk about her record on this topic. Yet when Trump recently threw his weight behind an initiative to legalize recreational use of the drug in his home state of Florida, Harris’s campaign spokesperson merely dismissed it as “blatant pandering” given his attempts to stymie marijuana reform efforts as president. That analysis might be correct, but it’s also an acknowledgment that Trump is picking up on a popular issue.
By not more forcefully critiquing Trump’s new stance on marijuana, Harris’s team has unwittingly ceded ground to him. That’s particularly frustrating because his position is Grade-A terrible. His statement supporting the Florida measure emphasized “states rights to pass marijuana laws” while keeping the substance illegal at the federal level.
This “leave it to the states” stance, which has essentially been the position of Democratic candidates for years (including President Joe Biden, which likely explains why Harris has focused more on decriminalization as his vice president), has been a disaster. By abdicating the federal government’s responsibility to regulate drugs, this view has granted the cannabis industry freedom to sell their products with little oversight.
The result: Marijuana companies have been cultivating evermore potent — and therefore more addictive — versions of the drug. Marijuana plants today can have upward of 20 times the amount of THC (the drug’s primary psychoactive ingredient) that they did in 1980. Oil forms can be far more powerful.
That should make anyone nervous. Recent data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health found that more people are now using marijuana on a daily or near-daily basis than there are people who drink alcohol daily. And scientists are only now just uncovering the negative effects of heavy cannabis use: increased risk of heart attack and stroke, increased risk of developing chronic psychiatric disorders, increased risk of developing head and neck cancers. No wonder Americans increasingly view the drug as harmful.
Federal legalization is the first necessary step to address these problems. That’s because removing marijuana’s status as a controlled substance would finally allow the Food and Drug Administration to regulate the ubiquitous drug. In other words, Harris’s stance — or at least, the one she’s expressed in the past — is the only responsible position going forward. (To anyone who wants to go back to the days of prohibition, well, good luck with that.)
The savvy move would be for Harris to combine the popularity of federal legalization with the need to confront marijuana’s public health implications. This could include, for example, strictly regulating its potency and how it is marketed.
Adopting such a campaign message would require no small feat of courage from Harris. Yes, marijuana is popular, but there’s no guarantee legalization would win over many voters. The same goes for promises to make it safer to use; polling about the details of legalization (e.g., how it’s regulated) are virtually nonexistent.
Moreover, Harris might be reluctant to touch the issue because of her own complicated evolution on pot (as district attorney in San Francisco, her office prosecuted more than 1,900 people for cannabis offenses). Plus, Harris’s goal right now is to woo moderate voters, so leaning into a traditionally “liberal” policy might seem unnecessarily risky.
Here’s the upside: Legalization is the right policy the country needs now. Prudent presidential candidates are careful not to venture too far ahead of public opinion, but they also cannot become enslaved to it. They must recognize moments where that can lead the public and generate excitement.
Legalizing marijuana can be that moment. Harris can make the case that the government shouldn’t be micromanaging people’s personal consumption habits but should instead be helping people make safe decisions. For a campaign that’s running on “freedom,” that message fits nicely.
