Kamala Harris wants voters to know that she smoked marijuana one time in college.
The Democratic presidential candidate admitted to the hip-hop radio radio show “The Breakfast Club” that she smoked pot “a long time ago” and said that marijuana “gives people joy.”
Harris seems to be working hard to craft a hip, progressive image since launching her presidential candidacy, particularly as she faces criticism for a tough-on-crime record as district attorney and attorney general in California.
Harris admits to smoking pot in college
To some, Harris is anything but a laid-back lefty with relaxed views on drugs. Her comments were a response to rumors that she opposes marijuana legalization, but more broadly appeared to be an answer to critics on the Left who are troubled by her criminal justice record.
Asked by Charlamagne Tha God if the rumors about her opposition to legalization were true, Harris quipped about her partly Jamaican heritage and said that she smoked marijuana “a long time ago” when she was a student in college.
“That’s not true [that I’m against legalizing marijuana.] Look, I joke about it, half-joking, half of my family is from Jamaica,” Harris said, “Are you kidding me?”
Harris let listeners know that she “did inhale” – a pointed contrast to Bill Clinton’s comments in 1992 that he smoked but didn’t breathe it in.
“I have and I inhaled, I did inhale,” Harris said. “It was a long time ago, but yes. I just broke news,” she added, noting, “it was a joint.”
“Listen, I think that it gives a lot of people joy,” Harris added. “We need more joy.”
Watch Harris talk about smoking marijuana below:
Hear what #KamalaHarris thinks about legalizing marijuana 💬 pic.twitter.com/YGZlCAKUZ0
— The Breakfast Club (@breakfastclubam) February 11, 2019
Faker?
Harris told the hosts of the popular New York radio show that she supports legalizing marijuana at the federal level but said that “we need to research the impact of weed on a developing brain” and that it’s important to asses its impact on drivers. But Harris left nothing about her position unclear in a tweet Monday re-iterating her support for legalization.
“Let me be clear: it’s time we legalized marijuana at the federal level. Marijuana laws are not applied or enforced in the same way for all Americans, many whose lives have been ruined by these regressive policies. We must change the system.”
However, like other Democrats, Harris’s stance on marijuana has evolved as public opinion has warmed to legalization. She opposed a state initiative to legalize weed in California in 2010 before coming to support legalizing medicinal marijuana in 2015, and now recreational use.
Let me be clear: it’s time we legalized marijuana at the federal level. Marijuana laws are not applied or enforced in the same way for all Americans, many whose lives have been ruined by these regressive policies. We must change the system.
— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) February 12, 2019
Harris said that she listened to Tupac and Snoop Dogg while smoking pot, but both rappers made their breakthroughs in the early 1990s. Harris graduated from Howard College in the 1980s. By the time Snoop Dogg’s debut album Doggystyle was released in 1993, Harris had already graduated law school.
Harris’ marijuana reveal looks like another attempt by the Cardi B dancing top cop to pander to young, left-wing voters who like her charisma and identity politics credentials but who are concerned about her history as an aggressive prosecutor.
Critics note that Harris’s “woke” politics seem to be a recent development. Some Leftists take issue with Harris’s inaction on criminal justice reform throughout her career as a top cop, pointing to Harris’s defense of the death penalty despite personally opposing it, record of upholding wrongful convictions and tough prosecutorial approach.
A viral video made the rounds of the Internet recently in which Harris laughed with relish about scaring the parents of truant schoolchildren with “mean” looking murder and gang prosecutors.
The Daily Beast recently reported that lawyers from Harris’s office opposed early parole for non-violent offenders in overcrowded jails by arguing that it would deprive the prisons of much-needed cheap labor – hardly the stuff of woke left-wing politics.
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