Kamala Harris signals she'll go further than Biden on marijuana legalization "we need to legalize it and stop criminalizing this behavior"
Kamala Harris signals she'll go further than Biden on marijuana legalization "we need to legalize it and stop criminalizing this behavior"
Kamala Harris has historically supported marijuana legalization, but had yet to clarify her stance since launching her current campaign.
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Ok. What's her plan?
So far all we know is she might do more than nothing
She might, yes. I'd still like to see a plan. Hopefully one will be forthcoming soon.
I’m guessing there will be no plan
Perhaps. I'm notoriously pessimistic about Democrats actually wanting to do things that don't involve capitulating to Republicans, but she just announced it. I'll give her some time to put out a plan before assuming it's just an empty campaign promise like Biden's was.
It’s getting to where if democrats keep milking this issue, they are going to snatch defeat from jaws of victory by pussyfooting around a highly popular issue.
I definitely would not become a republican just because of this issue, but there are many people who see politics as silly football teams. I can see Republicans winning and election because “bro, the republicans support weeeeeeeeed, man”
It’s baffling how uninformed so many large groups of people are when it comes to news and politics
It’s getting to where if democrats keep milking this issue, they are going to snatch defeat from jaws of victory by pussyfooting around a highly popular issue.
Yes, that is familiar behavior from Democrats.
I think to say something broadly popular with the voting base and then forget about it after the election. Decent plan TBH.
Same is true with health care, minimum wage, sick leave for workers, there are numerous issues that large majority's on both sides support that nothing will be done about because billionaires and corporate donors. She is a neoliberal after all.
There's a couple of different ways she could do it. She could start the descheduling process (doable with existing law, but DEA slow it down like they are with Biden trying to move it to schedule 3). Or if there's a democratic trifecta, she could also push for legislation to legalize it
She did push for legislation like that in 2018 when she was a senator
I'm aware of the avenues by which it could be legalized. I asked what Harris' plan is. If she hasn't released one yet, fine. She only just announced it. But I would like some specifics from her campaign at some point, because Biden's efforts have been disappointing to everyone who considers Biden to be fallible.
Biden never said he supported full legalization as far as I am aware, so it's not surprising he didn't go as far as he could.
She just made the announcement for the first time in this campaign, so not stated that yet, but she has pushed for legalization via legislation in the past as a senator and called for faster action for the DEA on rescheduling as VP
In other areas, Walz and Harris have already given plans for passing legislation to make banking access easier for legal states and helping veterans get access to medical marijuana in the VA
She just made the announcement for the first time in this campaign, so not stated that yet, but she has pushed for legalization via legislation in the past as a senator and called for faster action for the DEA on rescheduling as VP
In fairness, she pushed for that legislation in 2018 when Trump was president. I've seen Democrats introduce a lot of things when they know they stand no chance of passing. I hope a plan will be forthcoming. At the moment, we have a campaign promise.
In other areas, Walz and Harris have already given plans for passing legislation to make banking access easier for legal states and helping veterans get access to medical marijuana in the VA
This, however, is actually reassuring. Thank you.
He absolutely promised to fully decriminalize. Instead all we got was a committee to look into looking into considering reducing the scheduling of cannabis. It was an empty promise, like every democrat before him because if they actually did something they wouldn’t be able to keep dangling the carrot for votes. Source: https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/biden-promise-tracker/promise/1529/decriminalize-marijuana/
Decriminalization is not the same as legalization. In terms of legalization, he only supported legalization for medical marijuana which is the process he started. He actually pledged to move it to schedule 2 but has started the process to move it to schedule 3. That process is getting closer for what it's worth. The DEA has really dragged it out but it's nearly at the end with the public hearing in December
From the source that politico links to
he will support the legalization of cannabis for medical purposes
[...]
reschedule cannabis as a schedule II drug so researchers can study its positive and negative impacts.
So he promised to decriminalize, but did nothing to make good on that promise until most of his term in office had passed, and that's why we aren't done with the lengthy process to get there yet. Your answers throughout the discussion seem to keep glossing over the bolded part. (unless I have some misunderstanding, which is possible)
And that is the part that makes me doubtful Kamala will be any different.
He actually started the reschedule process in 2022, but before that there were attempts by dems to do legalization via legislation but in the senate that didn't end up getting enough votes.
Rescheduling via legislation is more direct and skips the lengthy process describe in the law for executive action. The president is not able to immediately snap their fingers and reschedule. People within the DEA / other agencies have showed it down since 2022. It's at the last stages now after the public comment hearing in December. For what it's worth, as VP Harris did try to call on the agencies to speed up said process but she has no direct power to do so
Ah, the article linked above seemed to say that he'd just begun the process this past May, but maybe I misread it. I will read it again.,
The part that happened in May was the actual rule being formally proposed.
It [the formal rule proposal] is the next step in the rescheduling process begun by Biden in October 2022, and follows a recommendation by the Department of Health and Human Services in August to reclassify marijuana.
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/16/biden-announces-marijuana-reclassification-00158408
Wait a second, when someone said Biden should do more you replied that Biden can’t do more,
But now you are saying Biden didn’t do more because he didn’t want to.
Something’s not adding up.
I think dems are using this issue the same as they did with abortion.
That’s why women are dying right now in many states, because politicians are dangling carrots with no intention of actually doing their jobs
Remember when Biden "signaled" he would be a one term president in his first campaign, then proceeded to put the entire country at risk by running again?
Those stories were his aides saying he was considering he might not run again. He never said it publicly.
Here Harris is directly stating publicly she wants it legal federally. It's not a new stance for her. As a senator in 2018 she co-sponsored legislation to make it legal federally
No. It was his words. His words he said. With his mouth.
He never explicitly said he would be a one term president or necessarily saw himself as one. I looked back to double check again, and he only made cagey statements about seeing himself as the transition between generations. A two term president could still qualify for that. The more explicit one term stuff was from his aides saying he was considering that
Should he have just been more direct, yes, but what he said was nothing as explicit as directly stating we need marijuana it to be legalized
and he only made cagey statements about seeing himself as the transition between generations
What the fuck else do you think it means to "signal" something in politics?
However, unlike that Harris isn't making a cagey statement here. She's directly stating that marijuana should be federally legalized
Really the title of this article shouldn't be signals
Thats fair. This is more than a "signal". What people attributed to Biden (you can dig through the articles of the day; it was very clearly taken as a signal he would remain a 1 term president) was a "signal" though, in the pure sense of it. Its a kind of political maneuver that could be a head fake, could be real, you can figure it out later.