Kamala Harris and Joe Biden are going up against the Republican Party’s Donald Trump and Mike Pence this year, and in preparation for the election, Kamala recently came out to say that she and Joe were supporting the decriminalization of marijuana around the country.
According to Hot New Hip Hop, both Biden and Kamala have taken heat from some of their supporters for opposing the legalization of marijuana in the past. On Tuesday night, however, Harris reportedly appeared before a roundtable and touched on the issue.
Harris claimed she and her running mate intended on decriminalizing the use of marijuana. Moreover, they tend to expunge all marijuana convictions, in the hopes of taking pressure off citizens who have been incarcerated.
Kamala went on to say that 2020 wasn’t the right time for “half-steppin.’” There are massive structural changes that need to be made to the system itself, the Democratic candidate argued. Political junkies know she and Biden have often been against the legalization of marijuana.
For instance, while Harris acted as the attorney general for California, she had a record for promoting the retention of marijuana’s illicitness and the criminal status of those who had been charged with using and selling it.
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Hot New Hip Hop also says Biden played a fundamental role in the creation of a drug bill in 1994 which espoused a tough-on-drugs ideology that was all the rage at that point in American history. At the time, very stringent mandatory sentences were announced for marijuana-related crimes.
Regardless, there are substantial differences between the legalization and decriminalization of marijuana. For instance, the legalization of cannabis would make it so marijuana enters the same ranks as tobacco and alcohol.
Decriminalization, on the other hand, would mean that marijuana-related crimes would not be criminally prosecuted, and one could not go to jail for obtaining it or having it within one’s possession. It’s unclear when the United States of America will join their neighbor to the north, Canada’s legalization of marijuana.