In a social media post made this evening, Vice President Kamala Harris said “I will legalize recreational marijuana”.
In the post, made on the social media platform X.com, Harris said she will “break down unjust legal barriers, and create opportunities for all Americans to succeed in this new industry.”
Last month Harris released a policy agenda that includes a pledge to “legalize marijuana at the federal level.” In it, Harris promised to “work with Congress to ensure that the safe cultivation, distribution, and possession of recreational marijuana is the law of the land” if elected next month. This pledge came nearly two weeks after Harris said in an interview, “I just think we have come to a point where we have to understand that we need to legalize [marijuana] and stop criminalizing this behavior.”
Although Harris opposed marijuana legalization while she was California Attorney General, as a U.S. Senator, Harris co-sponsored the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement (MORE) Act, which would deschedule marijuana, expunge certain cannabis offenses, and establish a federal excise tax for marijuana sales. In 2019, Harris announced her support for legalizing marijuana.
In April of this year, Harris said “we need to legalize marijuana”, making her the first vice president in U.S. history to do so.
Nationwide marijuana legalization could provide significant economic benefits, creating over a million new jobs and contributing billions in tax revenue. According to a report by New Frontier Data, federal legalization could generate $128 billion in tax revenue over the first decade, while also spurring job growth in cultivation, retail, and ancillary sectors. Projections suggest that legalization might create 1.6 million jobs by 2030.
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