Politics
Harris Campaign Omits Marijuana From New Issues Page As Trump Earns Praise For Backing Legalization
As the cannabis world reacts to former President Donald Trump’s newly announced support for federal rescheduling, advocates are taking notice that a new, long-awaited issues page launched by the campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris omits any mention of marijuana policy reform despite her record promoting comprehensive legalization.
The issues page is fairly exhaustive, with details about her platform on taxes, affordable housing, health care, education, child care and more.
The new website section touches briefly on broader drug policy, noting that Harris is “committed to ending the opioid epidemic and tackling the scourge of fentanyl”—noting her record of going after “drug traffickers” as a prosecutor but also pointing out that when it comes to harm reduction, the Biden-Harris administration “made the overdose-reversal drug naloxone available over-the-counter.”
Notably absent, however, is any mention of her position on cannabis policy.
While Harris privately reaffirmed her support for legalization during a roundtable event at the White House event with marijuana pardon recipients—and she sponsored a bill to end federal prohibition during her time in the Senate—she’s been silent on the issue since President Joe Biden bowed out of the race and she became the nominee.
That seems to have created an opening for Trump, the 2024 Republican nominee, 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.
Trump also confirmed he would be voting in favor of a Florida ballot initiative to legalize marijuana as a resident of the state—another development that seems to run counter to the extreme anti-drug rhetoric he’s previously promoted during the campaign.
The prior Biden-Harris campaign had made several attempts to contrast the administration’s marijuana reform actions with those of the Trump administration, pointing out for example that his former attorney general, Jeff Sessions, had rescinded Obama era guidance that generally encouraged prosecutorial discretion in federal marijuana enforcement.
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 is all the more glaring.
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.
Prior to announcing his support for marijuana reform, the former president met with the CEO of Trulieve Cannabis Corp., a large company that has provided the vast majority of funding in support of the Florida legalization campaign.
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.
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.”
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.
As president, Trump largely stayed true to his position that marijuana laws should be handled at the state-level, with no major crackdown on cannabis programs as some feared after then-Sessions rescinded the Obama era federal enforcement guidance. In fact, Trump criticized the top DOJ official and suggested the move should be reversed.
While he was largely silent on the issue of legalization, he did tentatively endorse a bipartisan bill to codify federal policy respecting states’ rights to legalize.
That said, on several occasions he released signing statements on spending legislation stipulating that he reserved the right to ignore a long-standing rider that prohibits the Justice Department from using its funds to interfere with state-legal medical marijuana programs.
Kamala Harris Holds The Trump Card On Cannabis Despite Her Opponent’s Latest Comments (Op-Ed)
