h/t Law Professors Blog Network
by Douglas Berman
As reported in this local article, headlined “Kamala Harris not opposed to legalizing marijuana,” the top law enforcement offices in the largest US state is expressing an openness to the idea of full marijuana legalization. Here are the details:
California Attorney General Kamala Harris, the state’s top cop and Democratic front-runner in the race for a U.S. Senate seat next year, said Wednesday that she has “no moral objection” to legalizing the recreational use of marijuana, but cautioned that special care will be required to assess the impacts on children and public safety. “It’s easy to stand up and make a grand gesture, but we really do have to work out the details,” said Harris, who told The Chronicle that she believes “it is an inevitability” that recreational use of marijuana will be legalized in the state.
Harris’ comments were her first in-depth remarks since announcing that she would run in 2016 to fill the seat of Sen. Barbara Boxer, who announced last month that she would not run for re-election, and the first time as a Senate candidate that she has addressed marijuana legalization. “But to be very clear,” she said of legalization, “it’s not a passive position,” adding that as the state’s senior law enforcement official, she has already been studying the impacts in Colorado and Washington state, where recreational use is legal. It becomes legal in Oregon later this year.
“I’m actually in constant communication with Washington and Oregon to watch what they are doing and to explore all of the options, to make sure we do this in a way that takes advantage of learning from their mistakes,” she said.
California will need to “figure out the important issues” related to legalization, especially “as it relates to children, as it relates to schools and advertising and the quantities … and issues like safe driving and enforcement of our rules around that,” as well as about the impacts of edible marijuana, she said. “That’s where I’m focused, on all the details of that.”
Her personal views on the drug: “I don’t have any moral opposition to legalization,” she said. “But I do feel a very strong sense of responsibility as a top cop to pay attention to the details … to make sure that if it were legalized … that vulnerable people are safe,” she said.