Harris says she backs legalizing marijuana, going further than Biden

I mean, this won Trudeau 3 elections, so I'd say it's a worth it campaigning point.

Best way to get the young male vote to be honest. Isn't this part of what made Ron Paul popular?

Ron Paul wass popular becausue of his racist newsletter back in the 80's. Everything else was just whitewash.
- Ron Paul wasn't popular because of a racist newsletter. He was popular because the libertarian ideals he espoused were appealing to internet dwellers that hadn't experienced real life yet.
- To me, a European, he was one of the very few, if any, candidates that made sense and seemed consistent in how he voted and spoke. And I consider myself to be quite libertarian.
  
  I don't really understand your remark to be honest, other than shoehorning the "he made a racist remark" thing into the conversation. Perhaps you could elaborate.

boy if i had rights and benefits for every right and benefit Joe Biden "said he backed"

Boy, if you had basic civics knowledge as to how a president in the executive branch cannot pass laws himself but requires the legislative branch (Congress) to pass said laws that he would back.
- Say what you will about the Republicans, at least they get results on their absurd culture war bullshit. Best the Dems can do for the left is ignore us completely and give us Tim Walz as a VP like we should be soooo fucking grateful
- Actually the power of executive orders are very broad, and as of 2024, are beyond any limits of law. Official acts of a sitting president cannot be criminalized. He can absolutely order the FDA to immediately remove Marijuana from schedule 1 status, but he won't. What carrot would Harris have to dangle in front of us at that point?
  
  For context, yes, I'm a dem, and yes, I'm voting for Harris, but fuck me I'm tired of such transparent posturing.
- We can give weapons to Israel without congressional approval, but not Ukraine.
  
  We can build a border wall violating federal laws, but we can't have the DEA approve a plant.
  
  Seems weird how being unabashedly evil is bipartisan and the patriotic duty of the president and anything good the Democratic candidate has to promise they'll try to work on Congress with, reaching across the isles of the literal actual fascists known as Republicans.
Yeah I view these statements more as "I'm going to tell you what you want to hear so you'll elect me!"
- This close to the election...

In before it gets legalized federally and then some republican states start spouting states rights and continue to arrest people that are following the law.

You can already see this with legalization in Germany and right-wing controlled Bavaria. I am not sure right now how far they are going, but they are not happy with this and at least try to make consumption as uncomfortable as possible.

Been waiting a long time for this.

I love how it's a bit of a stretch to back legalising a substance which has become legal in a fair number of states without any issue (that I'm aware of).

How many elections before a candidate is praised for saying something like, "I, unlike the others, am prepared to accept that the populace generally believes that vegetables are part of a healthy diet?", because we live in a world where the vast majority of candidates are just saying any old stupid shit that is viral on social media.

Those states still have dispensaries and grow operations raided all the time, putting people who work at them at risk. There's also the fact that people like me, who need it for medical use, are breaking both state and federal law by going from Indiana to Illinois to buy it. It could potentially put me in federal prison (probably not, but that is the way things stand legally).
- The only way I can explain such stupidity is by assuming malice, e.g.: "We must put endless fear into the poor people. Our decisions are moral, theirs are not."
I think 40 states have medical and 25 have recreational. It's insane that it's even a question about federal legalization at this point.
- And several more have it in a bizarre legal gray area where no one really knows if it's illegal
without any issue (that I'm aware of).

Not only that, but states and municipalities have made a killing on taxing it.

TBF, "Leave it up to the states" in the context of recreational use is appropriate here. Extending that concept would necessarily include having extremely limited federal regulation, if any at all.

Medical use, in my opinion, should be federally protected, such that you can acquire medical use cannabis for a uniform set of medical purposes in all states.

100% disagree. First because it puts people in prison for spurious reasons and secondly because it's a plant. You can literally just grow it in your back yard. And it will grow really easily. It doesn't even take work.

You know what will totally fuck you up but is totally legal to own and grow and use? Salvia divinorum. You know what else? San Pedro cactus.

Even with shrooms, it's legal to own the spores when you're talking about psilocybin and Amanita Muscaria is 100% legal. It can literally kill you.

We don't even need to go into tobacco.

How does any of that make sense?
- You know what will totally fuck you up but is totally legal to own and grow and use? Salvia divinorum.
  
  Salvia is fucking wild. I do not recommend it unless you want to lose your mind for ~10 minutes or so. Like, from sober to "holy shit I'm on the wheel of fortune right now" in an instant.
- Oh I didn't say it made sense, especially in comparison to other legally produced intoxicants. If things made sense, we wouldn't have gestures widely.
  
  But in the nonsensical paradigm, relegating the legal status of a recreational drug to the state level would be appropriate, and most certainly a step in the right direction. More to the point, I don't see it being possible for the federal government to command nationwide legality of recreational cannabis. This is why I made a separate statement about medical use.
- All these drugs you cite as negative examples have a really good safety profile. So no idea why you do that.
- While I complete and totally agree that it should be legalized, or at least federally rescheduled and completely decriminalized, I worry about what happens when it's federally regulated and taxed.
  
  If it is federally legalized and taxed, it will likely become the domain of the ATF, who will ~~take over~~ continue kicking in doors and doing raids on anyone who is not a huge corporate grower. Marlboro has already trademarked Marlboro Greens and I'm sure every other tobacco giant has their branding ready.
  
  Leaving regulation and taxation to each state is probably better long term, otherwise it's just going to be a corporate cash grab with established local growers and suppliers getting screwed.
  
  Regardless, it should be completely legal to grow it in your back yard.
I mean I would appreciate it if it were federally legal. I live in a state where its legal but I'm employed by the federal government so I can't use it without putting my job at risk.

It would've been cool if she said this when she was actively putting people in cages for weed.

It would've been cool if she said this for the past 4 years while she was VP.

Now she's saying it for an election. I'm sure she's legit this time. lol.

She co-sponsored a bill to fully legalize it in 2018. Behind closed doors she was advocating for legalizing it as VP, but Biden doesn't support full legalization so it would've been a bad look for him if his VP was publicly going against him when he was still running
How dare someone change their mind! We should definitely teach her a lesson she won't forget and be amongst the 3000 people who who vote for Cornel West in November!
- How can you make the claim that she changed her mind? Believe actions not words regardless of who it's coming from.

I will be sad if this means weed is corporatized though

Do you think buying it from a street dealer isn't corporatized? Cartels are basically just black market multinationals at this point. If anything, legalization would make it less corporate since you could grow it in your backyard.

It will seem more corporate once it's legal, but that's just because the business is being conducted in daylight.

Source: Canadian who grows a plant or 2 each summer
- There's an in-between you haven't considered, which is my local mom and pop pot shop. Yes some of these dispensaries are corporations, eg Mr Nice Guy, but most are not able to be corporations due to issues with banking because it's not legal at the US federal level. If it became legal at the federal level, then there wouldn't be any barriers for Walmart or any other very very large corporation to take hold of the industry and capitalize on it.
It's a plant that grows in the ground, it'll get about as corporatized as tomatoes. Meaning people will try, but they can't really stop you from growing legal plants in your garden.
- Tobacco Industry: "Am I a joke to you?"

Good it needs to be done.

Biden went somewhere on this?

I remember Biden running on a promise to federally decriminalized Marijuana. Never happened. Don't expect it to happen under Harris either. Dumb cow laughs about locking up people for profit using less than a gram of weed.

I just want Hemp producers to not have to jump through all the legal redtape.. We need to make this an important crop again for the good of the planet.