We've come a long way from "I didn't inhale."
Sen. Kamala Harris, weeks into her campaign for president, not only acknowledged that she has smoked pot, but said she isn't opposed to federal legalization of marijuana.
"I think it gives a lot of people joy and we need more joy," Harris said, laughing, during an interview on the influential hip-hop radio show The Breakfast Club Monday morning.
Harris was being interviewed by Charlamagne Tha God when she admitted she smoked a joint in college. "I did inhale," she said, in a reference to President Clinton's famous equivocation when asked more than 25 years ago on the campaign trail if he had ever smoked weed.
Harris denied accusations that, as a prosecutor, she opposed marijuana legalization. "Half my family's from Jamaica," she said. "Are you kidding me?"
In her new book, Harris explicitly calls for marijuana to be legalized and regulated at the federal level. She writes: "Something else it's past time we get done is dismantling the failed war on drugs ー starting with legalizing marijuana."
Legal recreational use of cannabis, already the law of the land in 10 states, is becoming something of a litmus test for Democratic 2020 candidates, who consider it part of criminal and social justice reform.
