On Monday, Vice President Kamala Harris became the first major presidential candidate to endorse the federal legalization of cannabis, pledging to ensure “the safe cultivation, distribution and possession of recreational marijuana is the law of the land.” Though many states have legalized cannabis and its marijuana extracts, the drug still remains illegal at the federal level.
The declaration was made in an “Opportunity Agenda” designed to support Black men that also includes plans to improve access to addiction treatment and other medications. It also states Harris would provide forgivable loans for Black business owners along with opportunities for the Black community to participate as a “national cannabis industry takes shape.”
The agenda, released at a Black-owned business in Erie, Pennsylvania, appears to be part of a larger strategy to appeal to Black voters that also included a campaign stop in Detroit. There, Harris was interviewed by radio host Charlamagne tha God, whose morning hip-hop show, “The Breakfast Club,” has a weekly audience of 4.5 million listeners.
“I will work on decriminalizing [cannabis] because I know exactly how those laws have been used to disproportionately impact certain populations and specifically Black men,” Harris said during the interview Tuesday.
The campaign push comes after a New York Times/Siena College poll found that, although Harris had increased support among Black voters after President Biden dropped out of the race, she still trailed behind the proportion of Black voters that Biden had to win the election in 2020 by about 10 percentage points. Meanwhile, the number of Black voters pledging support for Trump has increased to 15 percentage points from nine in the 2020 election. As Harris said in the Tuesday interview, it is expected to be a “margin-of-error race.”
When Charlamagne tha God asked Harris to comment on the “political timing” of the agenda and the sentiment that “some people in the Democrat Party use Black Americans to play identity politics,” Harris said the initiative built on the economic agenda she has been working on for years as senator and vice president and specifically highlighted her efforts to increase money in community banks.
“When our Black men are taken care of, that is better for our community, that is better for our family, and that is better for our economy.”
“Of all the venture capital funding, only 1% goes to Black entrepreneurs,” Harris said. “We don’t have the same rates of access to capital, be it through family or through connections, which is why I’ve done the work of putting billions more dollars into community banks, which go directly to the community.”
H/T: www.salon.com
