Vice President Kamala Harris convened a roundtable discussion on marijuana reform at the White House on Friday, declaring, “Nobody should have to go to jail for smoking weed.”
Sitting at the table inside the Roosevelt Room alongside rapper Fat Joe, White House officials, and those who’ve received pardons from the Biden-Harris administration, America’s first Black vice president acknowledged the historical and present racial disparities impacting Blacks and Latinos.
“Black Americans and Latinos are four times more likely … to be arrested for marijuana possession, and the disparity is even larger when you talk about the subset of Black men and Latino men,” said Harris during the roundtable’s opening remarks.
Harris, a former top prosecutor in California, said that to date, the administration has pardoned “tens of thousands of people with federal convictions for simple marijuana possession.” The vice president noted that those invited to Friday’s roundtable who received pardons would get the opportunity to share with the White House how the administration’s reforms impacted their lives.
“Their stories, I will tell you, are proof of the importance of pardons and what it means in the life of an individual in terms of allowing them a second chance and then an ability to reenter their community in a productive way,” said Harris.
In October 2022, President Joe Biden issued pardons for simple possession of marijuana under federal law, which was seen as a major step toward decriminalizing the drug that is now at least partially legal on the state level in nearly 40 states. In December 2023, Biden issued a second round of pardons and commuted sentences for 11 nonviolent drug offenders. The president also directed the federal government to review the rescheduling of marijuana.
At the roundtable, Harris acknowledged that the drug’s current Schedule I status under the Controlled Substances Act puts it in the same category…
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