Vice President Kamala Harris oversaw nearly 2,000 marijuana-related convictions as San Francisco’s top prosecutor, but now she is pitching legal weed entrepreneurship for Americans.
Harris, who has played up her experience as a prosecutor on the campaign trail, supervised more than 1,900 marijuana-related convictions in San Francisco during her tenure as the city’s district attorney from 2004-2010, according to a 2019 report by The Mercury News, a local Bay Area news outlet. Now locked in a tight presidential race against former President Donald Trump, Harris is running on legalizing recreational pot and enabling Americans to capitalize on the industry’s economic opportunities.
Notably, the proposal appears to be directed primarily at black men, as it was included in the Harris campaign’s recently-released “Opportunity Agenda for Black Men” and Harris strongly implied that the initiative would primarily benefit black Americans in a Tuesday social media post. However, the Harris campaign backtracked on the new proposals on Wednesday after receiving criticism and threats of future litigation for infusing race into economic policies, telling The Wall Street Journal that the proposals included in the “Opportunity Agenda for Black Men” are actually meant to be accessible to all Americans, regardless of their race.
“Drawing on insights from her experience throughout her career and her Economic Opportunity Tour, today Vice President Harris is laying out an Opportunity Agenda for Black Men to provide them with the tools to achieve financial freedom, lower costs to better provide for themselves and their families, and protect their rights,” reads the “Opportunity Agenda for Black Men,” a new economic plan from the Harris campaign. “This pathbreaking agenda includes … Legalizing recreational marijuana and creating opportunities for Black Americans to succeed in this new industry.” (RELATED: Kamala Harris Appears To Propose New Race-Based Payments As Support From Black Men Lags)
No one should go to jail for smoking weed. pic.twitter.com/D932NCGmPP
— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) October 15, 2024
Specifically, Harris’ office secured 1,956 misdemeanor or felony convictions for possession, cultivation or sale of marijuana while she was San Francisco’s top prosecutor, including individuals who were simultaneously convicted of more serious offenses, according to The Mercury News. Over the course of her tenure, 45 people were sent to state prison for marijuana-related offenses, and the figure does not include people who may have been sentenced to serve time in county jails.
Some lawyers who worked with Harris while she was district attorney said she took a relatively forgiving approach to marijuana offenses at the time, according to The Mercury News. However, at least one defense attorney who represented people prosecuted for weed crimes by Harris’ office remembered her as more aggressive than her predecessor, former San Francisco District Attorney Terence Hallinan.
“Some of the cases that Terence Hallinan would have just declined to prosecute, [Harris] said no, we’re going to prosecute these as felonies,” J. David Nick, the defense attorney, told The Mercury News. The police department’s wish to come down harder on drug dealers was one major factor for the shift Nick recalls, he told the outlet.
Harris appears to have won convictions for marijuana charges at a higher rate than Hallinan, according to The Mercury News. Convictions decreased substantially after Harris left office, which was the partial result of a new state policy that redefined some marijuana offenses as infractions, comparable to parking tickets, rather than misdemeanors.
While the vice president has backed legalizing the drug since 2018, Harris actively opposed a recreational weed ballot initiative in 2010 and subsequently did not get involved in the fight over a second marijuana initiative in 2016, according to The Mercury News.
Harris and other proponents of legalizing recreational marijuana say it creates economic opportunities and decreases black Americans’ run-ins with the criminal justice system. However, legal weed has not necessarily been a complete success in the places where it has been tried, such as New York, according to The New York Times.
Illegal weed vendors swamped New York City shortly after recreational legalization, boxing out legal vendors in the process, while marijuana products have found their way into the hands of youths, according to the NYT. Additionally, some evidence continues to emerge that the drug may not be as harmless as proponents let on, such as a recent study that linked teenage marijuana use and psychotic disorders.
The Harris campaign published its new policy memo for black Americans in the wake of recent polling showing that Harris is struggling to win the overwhelming support of black men in the 2024 presidential race.
Former President Barack Obama won the vote of black men between 18 and 44 years-old in 2012 by 81 points, and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton won the demographic by 63 points in 2016 before President Joe Biden carried the demographic by 53 points in 2020. Currently, polling suggests that Harris is only leading Trump with those voters by about 41 points with just weeks to go until voters head to the polls.
The Harris campaign did not respond to requests for comment.
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