Vice President Kamala Harris, in an interview on Jimmy Kimmel Live, implied that calling marijuana a gateway drug is antiquated thinking and suggested that resources spent on marijuana prohibition would be better used to combat opioid addiction.
During the interview Jimmy Kimmel focused heavily on the Biden and Harris Administration’s recent efforts to reform federal marijuana laws, including the DEA’s move to reschedule marijuana.
“I think we both agree that people shouldn’t have to go to jail for smoking weed”, said Harris. “And we’ve pardoned a number of people.”
She continued by saying “You know, I think it’s interesting also because, remember, there was a time when people would say, ‘well, marijuana is a gateway drug,’ and these were failed policies. The resources should be better directed and will be better directed to deal with opioid addiction and what we need to do around fentanyl, getting more resources into mental health and mental health care.”
During the interview Kimmel pointed out to Harris that there’s a legal marijuana strain available in California called Kamala Kush.
“Really? Seriously? I did not know that”, said Harris, laughing. Kimmel said it was “outrageous” that she has not been given any.
On May 16 Harris posted a video on the social media platform X, praising the administrations efforts to reschedule marijuana.
“So currently, marijuana is classified on the same level as heroin and more dangerous than fentanyl”, Vice President Harris says in the video. “We are finally changing that. I want to thank all of the advocates and everyone out there for helping to make this possible. We are on the road to getting it done.”
In March Harris became the first vice president in US history to publicly sat that “we need to legalize marijuana“.
