Kamala Harris talks legalizing marijuana: "Half my family is from Jamaica, are you kidding me?"

[demmiblue]

Link to tweet

[Adrahil]

1. I'm telling you....

... we need to make this a national issue.

I do not partake myself, but I think it would bring out young people in record numbers.

[MrGrieves]

3. Agreed.

I know a few “conservatives” who smoke and they voted Walz for governor in MN because of his MJ stance.

[NewJeffCT]

10. I know a few progressives

that will vote 3rd party if the Democrat isn't for legalizing marijuana.

[marble falls]

18. Republicans who smoke dope are called Libertarians.

[Pope George Ringo II]

30. Agreed entirely

I'm never sure if it is a net positive or negative for them from an electoral POV, though. I can't shake the feeling it's a bridge too far for the honest "limited government" types who aren't thrilled with the direction of the GOP but are still a little too straight-laced for some weed.

[Traildogbob]

49. Not just young

There are very many elders that are now benefiting from the effects of weed physically and emotionally in states where legal. They were afraid to try because of illegal status and false propaganda. Now "Dark Side Of The Moon" is most requested album at senior centers ( . I taught Forest Ecology and Wildlife Management as college faculty for 30 years, 80% of those students had a distintictive MAGA hat glow on the back of their necks. Most, love weed, a little too much, coming to field labs after a lunchtime doobie. Also, as a veteran from Vietnam era service that has appointments with the VA hospital monthly, those veterans have used weed and could benefit tremendously by having legal access, even prescribed doses to deal with physical and mental pain. With much less damage than opioids. Republican's only care about which drugs people use, those they are bought and paid for by legal drug lords. After the money gets to them, it will be legal, regardless of Evilgelical HipoChristians.

[stopwastingmymoney]

52. The dispensary I'm familiar with here in CA...

Has a senior discount! I get such a kick out of that

[marble falls]

53. Vet AND senior citizen.

[LuvNewcastle]

9. I agree.

Put legalization in the party platform and elect a candidate who will make this issue a priority. Most Americans favor legalization, especially the younger ones. Get the young people mobilized and we'll see a Democratic landslide.

[doompatrol39]

14. Absolutely.....

This and Net Neutrality are 2 slam dunk issues that would turn out the youth vote in record numbers. No brainers.

But we need to be sure we don't do what happened in my home state of New Jersey.

Our Dem governor ran on a platform of legalization. No equivocation, no "We'll look at the issue, etc." This was a major element of his platform and young people came out pretty heavily for him and he won.

However, once in office and with a Democratic majority in the statehouse, guess who started putting the kibosh on legalization? That's right: Our fellow Democrats.

So now you have a lot of pissed off young people who are blaming Democrats because....well, the Democrats control everything by a large margin and after supporting the Governor for re-election, knowing this was one of his signature issues....all of a sudden they become very concerned about all sorts of aspects of it.

So much potential for engagement, and justice, and positive imaging and messaging....all wasted.

[aikoaiko]

40. Absolutely, but we need to be a lot more direct that KH was willing to go in this interview

Which is fine for now, but at the fed level we need to completely decriminalize it and let the states determine how they wish to regulate it.

[madaboutharry]

2. Lol!

"I think it gives a lot of people joy!"

[roody]

4. She laughed off legalization as DA.

[comradebillyboy]

11. I didn't know DAs could change the laws on their own.

[marble falls]

19. They do it choosing who, what and how they prosecute.

[Hortensis]

23. She wasn't free to refuse to enforce a highly politicized,

wedge-issue law with Klieg lights permanently on it, though. Militant social conservatives would have made a huge stink, which could have caused trouble for future plans for legalization. Also, there are many laws that people can need protection from, and office holders need to expend their limited equity judiciously.

[marble falls]

54. Go to Parmer Rd in north Austin. Smoke on the Travis county side: get it confiscated ...

maaaybe a ticket if you're a butt to the cop.

Get caught on the Williamson county side and go to jail at least one night and pay $1,000 to get out. Then you get a lawyer. Theses prosecutors run eventually for state legislature and Congress as GOP. Some them even get trying to railroad suspects into the death house and have been sanctioned over it.

In Travis the County Prosecutor said her office would not pursue capital punishment in any case.

[Adrahil]

16. So what? I've changed my mind about it too. NT

[Act_of_Reparation]

22. You're not an ex-DA turned politician seeking higher office.

You'll have to excuse me if I treat her change of heart a little more suspiciously than I treat yours.

[DontBooVote]

25. Then you need to produce source information to make your case.

Last edited Mon Feb 11, 2019, 03:21 PM - Edit history (1)

You need to establish that she indeed had a "change of heart" that makes you suspicious of her motives for now advocating legalization. There should be video or news reports of that since you've apparently seen such source information.

We'll be waiting for your response.


Edited to remove quotation I attributed to the wrong person.

[Act_of_Reparation]

47. I said no such thing.

But since Googling is apparently very, very hard, here you go: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/17/opinion/kamala-harris-criminal-justice.html

But that's neither here nor there. The only thing I need to estabish is that Kamala Harris was a prosecutor in the state of California while marijuana was illegal.

[DontBooVote]

66. And you've established that you won't be supporting her. So your motives for posting

in threads discussing her candidacy are also....suspicious.

Edited to add: I thought I was responding to the person to whom I was speaking, which was was not you. You did not indeed say those things.

[Act_of_Reparation]

67. Oh, grow up.

If she's the candidate, I'll vote for ner. Until then, her previous history as a prosecutor is one that is that is both topical and worthy of discussion.

[DontBooVote]

68. Grow up? LOL! Like I said, your need to criticize her is suspicious all on it's own, nevermind...

...Sen. Harris, your motives are clear.

Good day.

[INdemo]

48. California was making a hell-o-a-lot of money with fines etc.

at the time. It was in her best interests to keep it illegal.

[JayhawkSD]

5. Not against Kamela or legal marijuana, but...

Is saying that half of your family is foreign to this nation the best way to get elected president?

[eShirl]

6. Yes.

IMHO

[Empowerer]

7. Foreign to this nation?"

Is there something wrong with having relatives who are immigrants?

[JayhawkSD]

12. Congratulations.

You managed to turn a light hearted remark into an insult. Well done, you have great talent for creating enemies. This is the sort of thing that can drive kind and thinking people away from the Democratic party. Make a light hearted remark, complete with smiley to be sure it was not intended to bash, and get slapped in the face.

[Empowerer]

15. Wow. Quite the overreaction, dontcha think?

[marble falls]

21. And you, gentle chiding and humor into condemnation.

[INdemo]

50. What comment did he make that was insulting? Did we miss something

[malaise]

13. Her father and all his relatives are Jamaican

Her mother was from India. She and her sister were born in the US just like the Con's father. Fact.
For the record half of the Con's family was not born in the US either - his mother was an illegal from Scotland

[IronLionZion]

42. For the record, racists don't care where someone is born or immigrated from

whites are honorary Americans even if they are from Scotland or Germany. Brown/black people are not considered Americans even if born here. I've dealt with this my whole life and I was born and raised here. Even many liberal Dems in my life will swear to God that I immigrated from somewhere else and will argue with me about it.

[malaise]

43. Yep that's the truth

I have family who face that regularly

[IronLionZion]

45. My favorite question lately is "Where is your accent from?"

America! I have an American accent!

[Moostache]

51. I just tell them Chicago and exaggerate it for them...

Da Bearsssss! Ditka! (My god when I saw him in a recent commercial I audibly gasped! Super Bowl XX is already 33 years ago, but in my mind's eye Ditka is permanently wearing that sweater vest and in the Superdome as a 40-something leading the team to its only SUper Bowl title...)

[jberryhill]

56. So, in that context, I'm having trouble understanding Harris' response here

The answer "Half my family is from Jamaica, are you kidding me?" seems intended to suggest that it would be silly for her opinion to deviate from an ethnic stereotype.

What does the fact that half her family comes from Jamaica have to do with jack shit in relation to her political opinions?

I'm having a hard time wrapping around what appears to be an invitation to impute opinions to her based on her family background.

Try these on for size:

"What do you think of prayer in public schools?"

"What do you think of LGBT rights?"

"Do you enjoy cockfighting?"

If the answer to any of those questions is "Half my family is from Jamaica, are you kidding me?" then I would certainly want this candidate nowhere near a position of any responsibility.

So, please, I'd like to understand what is the intended takeaway from answering a question with a reference to one's family ethnic background, from which we are supposed to apply a stereotype, instead of an actual answer to the question.

Taking Harris' response here, I gather that her opinion differs from yours on whether and when family background is key to understanding what someone thinks.

[IronLionZion]

61. Are you responsible for the hateful things Trump and his deplorables have done?

After all, you're American too. Try understanding that.

You disappoint me. You know there are parts of America where they do terrible things to LGBT people. I'm sure you'd prefer to be associated with the best aspects of America, not the worst.

[jberryhill]

63. Homosexuality is illegal in Jamaica

As to your first point, I would never invite people to impute views to me by saying "Half my family is from Austria, are you kidding me?" or "I am an American" as a response to a question about what my opinions are. When someone asks a candidate their stance on an issue, a statement of their ethnic origin, intended to reinforce a stereotype, is completely inappropriate.

Harris made the stupid comment, not me.

But your response makes zero sense at all. I do not judge people by their family background, etc.. Harris, on the other hand, apparently believes in making those sorts of inquiries.

That's what her response says.

Unlike Harris, I did not suggest that you decide my opinions based on my cultural background (about which you are totally ignorant).

Unlike Harris, I would not suggest that such a thing is at all appropriate.

There are indeed places in America where individuals do bad things. But that is also completely irrelevant to the national policy and laws of Jamaica.

Ms. Harris apparently DOES prefer to be associated with a stereotype, since that is what I understand her comment to mean.

Would you care to take a stab and explaining what her response meant, and how it is to be interpreted?

To be clear - I am not Kamala Harris, okay? SHE is the one who, by this response, apparently believes that a statement of family origin is a proxy for one's opinion on a topic.

[IronLionZion]

64. Write or call her office. I'm sure they'd love to help you understand

her positions on any policy. There are many good Dem candidates so you can support someone else if you like. Arguing with DUers about a candidate's ethnic heritage won't help you feel better. Diversity makes America great.

To be clear - I am not Kamala Harris, okay?

Thanks for that clarification.

[jberryhill]

65. "Arguing with DUers about a candidate's ethnic heritage"

I am not arguing about her ethnic heritage.

Harris apparently believes that ethnic heritage is a proxy for an individual's opinions.

I do not believe that, nor did I say anything negative about diversity.

Finally, I am not trying to understand her position on any policy. I am asking what she meant by her answer "Half of my family is from Jamaica, are you kidding?" in response to that question.

I doubt her office keeps track of the opinions of her family members.

My mother was an immigrant. Am I supposed to hold certain opinions depending on where she came from?

[RandySF]

28. Ask Trump

His mother was born in Scotland.

[IronLionZion]

44. Millions of US citizens are immigrants or children of immigrants and vote

Diversity is a winning issue. Obama won big twice.

[superpatriotman]

8. At last.

A politician who speaks to me.

I’d like to share a joint with her.

[DesertRat]

17. "It gives a lot of people joy, and we need more joy".

[harumph]

20. I'm getting to the age where an occasional pot brownie

would ease some low level neuromuscular pain - and help me sleep better.
I don't want the pharmaceutical industry controlling my access.

[getagrip_already]

24. That is a real danger......

You already see this in canada. Both big pharma and the alc/tobacco industries are poised to seize access to cannabis.

Legalization doesn't equate to free access. Politicians, like harris, need to state explicitly that it needs to be deregulated AND legalized.

It shouldn't be a controlled substance controlled by for profit industries. But it will be if we aren't vigilant.

[Merlot]

27. If at the very least we don't arrest and put people in jail for MJ

and rid the prisons of smokers, it would be a great start.

Pardons should be given to all who were imprisioned for smoking/possessing MJ.

[getagrip_already]

32. I live in MA..

We are rec legal now. We had been decriminalized for years before that. But we still haven't gone back and expunged old possession arrests and convictions.

Change happens slowly. Too slowly some times. But then again, we have a republican gov and a lot of conservative dems in name only.

[Voltaire2]

69. Legalization in MA is currrently a joke.

The cannabis control commission is stuffed with prohibitionists who have obstructed implementing the law, which the prohibitionists in the legislature made super easy to obstruct. There are still less than a dozen retail outlets open. At the rate they are being approved it will be decades before access is normal. The black market is thriving as a consequence. The fuck knob prohibitionists are using the mess they deliberately created to claim it’s all a big mistake.

[getagrip_already]

70. thats the gop model.....

Break something so badly it can't function and then say it should be eliminated because it doesn't work.

That's what I meant by we have a lot of dino's. A large portion of our elected critters are actually very conservative.

[jberryhill]

26. Not sure what that answer is supposed to mean

Jamaica is one of the most rabidly homophobic places on earth.

Should I gather she shares those views as well?

[honest.abe]

29. It means it has nothing to do with homophobia.

[jberryhill]

33. Oh, okay, so if someone asked "What do you think of LGBT rights?" and the answer was...

"My family is from Jamaica, are you kidding me?" then what would you conclude?

I tend to believe that people are individuals with their own beliefs and opinions, regardless of where their family may have come from.

[honest.abe]

34. She would not have answered the question in that way if the topic was LGBT rights.

Duh.

[jberryhill]

35. Okay, so...

The answer essentially means "You may impute culturally stereotypical views to me based on my heritage - i.e. 'are you kidding me?' - some of the time, but not all of the time."

I don't think everyone in Jamaica approves of marijuana either, but if we are going to assume that the "are you kidding me?" implies that it is silly to even ask if someone of Jamaican heritage approves of marijuana legalization, then the most reliably pro-marijuana demographic in Jamaica would be the Rastafarians, who strongly disapprove of homosexuality.

The answer - "Half my family is Jamaican, are you kidding me?" suggests that it is surprising to even question that she shares what are essentially stereotypical views that people in this country have of Jamaica.

Recreational marijuana, however, was legal in several US jurisdictions before it became so in Jamaica.

So, I will decline the invitation from Kamala Harris to engage in cultural stereotypes, and I assume she does not favor the treatment of LGBT persons in Jamaica as something that should be done in this country.

But her answer does suggest, to me at least, that it would be worth a look-see into her record on those issues, if she is going to identify with one of the most rabidly homophobic cultures on earth.

[customerserviceguy]

37. Excellent point

I missed that in reading the OP.

So, will she be vulnerable to the charge from the reich wing that she will mandate veganism because half of her family is from India?

[honest.abe]

38. Good grief you are taking this much too seriously.

I think she intended it to be more of joke than anything. But regardless why is it a problem for her to embrace views of Jamaican culture consistent with her beliefs and reject others that she disagrees with? Seems completely normal to me.

[jberryhill]

39. Yes, I take organized and systemic violence against LGBT persons in Jamaica seriously

[honest.abe]

41. As I said this has nothing to do with homophobia.

[BeyondGeography]

55. Ahfercryingoutloud

Stop it.

[jberryhill]

58. Half her family is from Jamaica, are you kidding me?

[demmiblue]

31. No. n/t

[jberryhill]

60. Okay, then....

Could you explain what that rhetorical question is supposed to mean in relation to the question asked?

[customerserviceguy]

36. Anybody know

what her record was as a prosecutor in regard to marijuana-related offenses? If she walks the walk, then she can talk the talk.

[scarytomcat]

46. Legalization is long overdue

And free all people that are being held on pot charges. It should never have been made illegal.
A person should be able to decide what they put into their own body.

[TexasBushwhacker]

59. The makers of Fentanyl contribute heavily to ANTI-legalization efforts

$500K in 2016 alone. They also make a synthetic THC called Marinol that's prescribed for nausea and anorexia in cancer and HIV patients. The problem is, you can actually OD on Marinol. But a few more dead people matter a lot less than their PROFITS.

[bigtree]

57. watch full interview

(44m)

[JuJuYoshida]

62. I use it as medicine for tremors so I back her completely

like someone mentioned, it's time for it to be legalized everywhere. It's helped me more than any other man-made liver killing pill.

[Baltimike]

71. knr