Vice President Kamala Harris on Friday called on the federal government to move “as quickly as possible” to change the way it officially classifies marijuana, saying that “nobody should have to go to jail for smoking weed.”
“I cannot emphasize enough that they need to get to it as quickly as possible,” Harris said. “We need to have a resolution based on their findings and their assessment. This issue is stark when one considers the fact that on the schedule currently, marijuana is considered as dangerous as heroin ― as dangerous as heroin ― and more dangerous than fentanyl, which is absurd, not to mention patently unfair.”
Marijuana is currently listed as a Schedule 1 drug by the Drug Enforcement Administration. That classification designates it one of the most dangerous drugs possible, with no medicinal uses. Other substances in the same category include heroin, ecstasy and LSD. Marijuana advocates have been pushing for years for the federal government to either reschedule marijuana to a different category or deschedule it entirely.
I completely agree… but that’s how this shit goes. This is definitely one of the situations where both sides pull the same shenanigans. When was the last time you heard Kamala Harris open her mouth? Granted, she’s been busy in a divided Senate, but Dan Quayle was more visibly present during the elder Bush’s administration than Kamala has been during Biden’s. Now she crawls out of the Senate chambers to talk about cannabis? Better late than never I guess.
It’s not like Biden’s administration hasn’t been doing anything useful. But these wildly popular policy initiatives that would do a lot of good often wait for politically convenient moments when it’ll be fresh in the electorate’s memory.