Harris Backed Broad Drug Decriminalization During 2020 Election Run, Resurfaced ACLU Questionnaire Shows

As Vice President Kamala Harris faces criticism from marijuana reform advocates about her relative silence on cannabis policy issues since becoming the 2024 Democratic nominee, a resurfaced ACLU candidate questionnaire from 2019 shows she previously backed broader reform—specifically, full federal decriminalization of drug possession.

It’s been well established that Harris has supported federal marijuana legalization. She said as much during a closed-door roundtable event with cannabis pardon recipients in March, and she sponsored legalization legislation during her time in the Senate.

During her 2020 election run, however, she checked “yes” on the ACLU survey when asked about whether she’d “support the decriminalization at the federal level of all drug possession for personal use.”

The ACLU’s introduction to the question said that “drug use is better addressed as a public health issue (through treatment and other programming).”

In response, Harris focused largely on her support for Senate cannabis legalization legislation such as the Marijuana Justice Act. She said it’s “long past time that we changed our outdated and discriminatory criminalization of marijuana.”

“Throughout my career I have supported treating drug addiction as a public health issue, focusing on rehabilitation over incarceration for drug-related offenses,” she added in the resurfaced statement, as CNN reported. “Both of my Back-on-Track programs, made it a priority to connect individuals with substance abuse treatment as part of diversion and re-entry programming, in addition to employment.”

In response to another question from ACLU, Harris detailed her broader criminal justice reform platform:

“As president, I would continue that record to seriously reform this system and change policies that led to mass incarceration To help end the era of mass incarceration, I will legalize marijuana, further reform federal sentencing laws, make the reforms included in the FIRST Step Act retroactive, end private prisons and immigrant detention facilities, seek a federal moratorium on the death penalty, and push states to prioritize treatment and rehabilitation for certain drug offenses. I will also use my clemency and pardon power as needed to make sure that we achieve real progress towards these badly needed reforms in a way that can provide immediate transform lives and communities.”

She also pledged to use her power as president to grant clemency to people with drug convictions.

“I have fought for end-to-end criminal justice reform my entire career and will continue to fight for badly needed reforms as president,” Harris said. “I will also use my clemency and pardon power on a broader basis than has been done in the past to overturn the convictions of people incarcerated for non-violent drug offenses.”

The ACLU questionnaire doesn’t necessarily point to any inconsistencies in Harris’s current platform. But as former President Donald Trump, the 2024 Republican nominee, earns praise for his recent vocal support for federal rescheduling, industry banking access and a Florida legalization ballot initiative, her seeming reluctance to embrace drug policy reform issues has become a source of frustration for advocates and stakeholders.

While the Harris campaign on Monday accused Trump of lying about his support for marijuana reform—arguing that his “blatant pandering” runs counter to his administration’s record on cannabis—she has yet to lay out a defined platform on the issue since accepting her party’s presidential nomination.

Case in point: A new, long-awaited issues page launched by the Harris campaign omits any mention of marijuana policy reform despite her record promoting comprehensive legalization.

The overall silence on the issue from Harris’s end seems to have created an opening for Trump to seize the issue in recent weeks, culminating in a post he made on his social media site Truth Social on Sunday, where he embraced the Biden administration’s push to reschedule marijuana and also backed freeing up banks to work with state-legal cannabis businesses.

The prior Biden-Harris campaign had also made several prior attempts to contrast the administration’s marijuana reform actions with those of the Trump administration, emphasizing the role Sessions played in rescinding the cannabis enforcement guidance.

But since Harris became the nominee, it’s been Trump who’s been most vocal about his desire to see cannabis reform implemented. And given that polling shows voters, especially Democrats, are motivated to support candidates who embrace marijuana legalization, the omission of that position on her campaign issues page and in this latest campaign comment attacking Trump’s record are all the more glaring.

Following Trump’s recent announcement of support for the Florida cannabis legalization ballot measure, the campaign for Harris has worked to remind voters that while in office, Trump “took marijuana reform backwards.”

In a memo from a senior campaign spokesperson, the Harris campaign accused Trump of “brazen flip flops” on cannabis. The Democratic campaign says it’s one of the Republican former president’s “several bewildering ‘policy proposals’ that deserve real scrutiny.”

“On issue after issue, Trump is saying one thing after having done another,” the memo says. “For example: As a candidate in 2024, he suggests he is for decriminalizing marijuana – but as President, his own Justice Department cracked down on marijuana offenses.”

Again, however, the pushback against Trump on the issue wasn’t accompanied by any specific details about Harris’s marijuana platform.

Trump’s latest marijuana post follows up on one he made last month in which he indicated—but did not explicitly say—he supported Amendment 3 in Florida. The earlier comments predicted that Florida voters would approve the cannabis measure and generally discussed the benefits of legalization, but left some observers wanting more clarity on the former president’s position on the specific state initiative.

Trump also discussed the medical benefits of cannabis and said legalization would be “very good” for Florida in an interview with Lex Fridman last week.

Last month at a press conference, Trump told a reporter that he’s starting to “agree a lot more” that people should not be criminalized over marijuana given that it’s “being legalized all over the country”—adding that he would “fairly soon” reveal his position on the Florida ballot measure.

Meanwhile, longtime ally and GOP political operative Roger Stone, who is also a Florida resident and supports the legalization proposal, separately told Marijuana Moment that if Trump did ultimately endorse the measure it would “guarantee victory.”

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC), who is sponsoring a bill to federally legalize marijuana called the States Reform Act, separately said that while she hoped Trump would back the Biden administration’s rescheduling move, she also said part of the reason Republicans in Congress have declined to embrace marijuana policy change is because they’re “afraid of it.”

Trump also recently went after Harris over her prosecutorial record on marijuana, claiming that she put “thousands and thousands of Black people in jail” for cannabis offenses—but the full record of her time in office is more nuanced.

Trump’s line of attack, while misleading, was nonetheless notable in the sense that the GOP presidential nominee implied that he disagrees with criminalizing people over marijuana and is moving to leverage the idea that Harris played a role in racially disproportionate mass incarceration.

Meanwhile, Harris selected Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) as her running mate, choosing a candidate who backed numerous cannabis reform measures in Congress, called for an end to prohibition when he was running for governor and then signed a comprehensive legalization bill into law in 2023.

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