Vice President Kamala Harris is shocked to learn there\u2019s a strain of marijuana named after her, but she\u2019s not planning to try it anytime soon. However, that\u2019s not because she believes its a \u201cgateway drug\u201d\u2014a long-held theory that she pushed back against in a new interview.<\/p>\n
During an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live on Tuesday, Harris also seemed to overstate how the administration\u2019s move to reschedule cannabis would impact criminal justice and the resulting availability of resources for other priorities.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we both agree that people shouldn\u2019t have to go to jail for smoking weed,\u201d the vice president said, earning applause. \u201cAnd we\u2019ve pardoned a number of people.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know, I think it\u2019s interesting also because, remember, there was a time when people would say, \u2018well, marijuana is a gateway drug,\u2019 and these were failed policies,\u201d she said. \u201cThe resources should be better directed\u2014and will be better directed\u2014to deal with opioid addiction and what we need to do around fentanyl, getting more resources into mental health and mental health care.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nMoving marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), as the Justice Department has formally proposed, would not legalize cannabis, so it\u2019s unclear how that reclassification would directly lead to the reallocation of resources as the vice president suggested.<\/p>\n
Harris has previously faced criticism for inflating the impact of the administration\u2019s marijuana actions, including when she said in February that she and President Joe Biden had already \u201cchanged federal marijuana policy.\u201d<\/a> At the time, a rescheduling decision hadn\u2019t even been made.<\/p>\n She\u2019s not the only administration official to exaggerate the impact of rescheduling since the decision was handed down. Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) Director Rahul Gupta has incorrectly claimed the reform would address the \u201cracial disparity\u201d in cannabis enforcement<\/a> and make cannabis available via prescription<\/a>.<\/p>\n Biden, for his part, recently corrected the record by acknowledging that his marijuana pardons did not expunge records<\/a>, as he\u2019s mistakenly said in the past.<\/p>\n On a lighter note, Harris seemed pleasantly surprised to learn during the Kimmel interview that there\u2019s a cannabis variety called Kamala Kush.<\/p>\n \u201cReally? Seriously? I did not know that,\u201d she said, laughing. Kimmel said it was \u201coutrageous\u201d that she hasn\u2019t been gifted some of the product named after her, but Harris said she\u2019s \u201cnot touching that.\u201d<\/p>\n The Biden-Harris administration has increasingly leaned into its cannabis actions in the lead-up to the November election. For example, Harris met with marijuana pardon recipients for a roundtable event at the White House in March, where she said behind closed doors that \u201cwe need to legalize marijuana.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n Meanwhile, the proposed rule to federally reschedule marijuana was officially posted last month, kicking off a public comment period that\u2019s expected to elicit a major response<\/a>\u00a0from supporters and opponents of cannabis reform.<\/p>\n Most Consumers Use Marijuana To Treat Health Issues, But Very Few Call It \u2018Medical,\u2019 AMA Study Finds<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n The post VP Kamala Harris Trashes Marijuana \u2018Gateway Drug\u2019 Theory, But Says She Won\u2019t Use Strain Named After Her<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Vice President Kamala Harris is shocked to learn there\u2019s a strain of marijuana named after her, but she\u2019s not planning to try it anytime soon. However, that\u2019s not because she believes its a \u201cgateway drug\u201d\u2014a long-held theory that she pushed back against in a new interview. During an appearance onContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":458,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18,81,126],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75974"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/458"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75974"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75974\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":75975,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75974\/revisions\/75975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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\nRead More: VP Kamala Harris Trashes Marijuana \u2018Gateway Drug\u2019 Theory, But Says She Won\u2019t Use Strain Named After Her<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"