When voters head to the polls next Tuesday, they’ll have a chance to decide between two major party presidential nominees on diametrically opposite sides of the political spectrum, with at least one key exception: They both support legalizing marijuana at some level.
This is a historic first in the U.S., with both Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump fundamentally aligned on the need for cannabis reform. That said, there are some nuances to each candidate’s policy position that voters who care about marijuana policy issues may take into account.
At a high level, there’s agreement between both tickets that people should not be arrested or jailed over simple marijuana possession.
On the campaign trail, Harris further pledged to federally legalize cannabis if elected; Trump endorsed an adult-use legalization initiative in Florida, where he’s a resident, but he’s generally maintained a states’ right position as far as federal reform is concerned.
While the vice president was notably silent on the issue for weeks after earning the Democratic nomination, her pro-legalization stance didn’t come as a surprise. She sponsored a legalization bill during her time in the Senate and voiced support for the reform during a private roundtable with marijuana pardon recipients back in March. She reiterated that position later in her campaign, pledging to make legalization “the law of the land” if she wins the White House.
Trump’s embrace of the Florida cannabis measure—as well as federal rescheduling and marijuana industry banking access—wasn’t quite so predictable. After formalizing his bid for reelection, he largely employed aggressive anti-drug rhetoric, for example voicing support for instituting the death penalty for people who sell illegal substances.
During his time in office, he made limited comments about the issue, tentatively backing legislation to let states set their own policies but taking no administrative steps to codify that policy. In fact, his first attorney general, Jeff Sessions, rescinded Obama-era guidance that urged prosecutorial discretion in federal cannabis enforcement.
Harris wasn’t always on board with marijuana legalization, either. As California’s attorney general, she wrote the opposition argument against a legalization ballot measure, for instance. She once laughed off a reporter’s question about her stance on the issue in light of a Republican opponent backing legalization.
As the Trump campaign and her opponents have repeatedly pointed out, meanwhile, people continued to be prosecuted over cannabis while Harris was serving as district attorney of San Francisco.
But while they might have had different reasons guiding their individual evolutions on cannabis policy reform—with Harris putting a focus on racial disparities in marijuana criminalization and Trump suggesting that the popularity of the issue makes legalization an inevitability—they’ve now arrived on roughly similar ground.
That said, Harris–Walz campaign, as well as certain bipartisan lawmakers, has accused Trump of lying about his support for marijuana reform—arguing that his “blatant pandering” runs counter to his administration’s record on cannabis.
Trump, for his part, has also gone after Harris over her prosecutorial record on marijuana, claiming that she put “thousands and thousands of Black people in jail” for cannabis offenses—but the full record of her time in office is more nuanced.
Here’s where Harris and Trump stand on marijuana:
Vice President Kamala Harris
Earlier this month, Harris pledged to federally legalize marijuana, ensuring that access to cannabis is “the law of the land.”
If elected, she will “break down unjust legal barriers that hold Black men and other Americans back by legalizing marijuana nationally, working with Congress to ensure that the safe cultivation, distribution, and possession of recreational marijuana is the law of the land,” the Harris campaign said.
The nominee’s cannabis plan to “legalize marijuana at the federal level to break down unjust legal barriers that hold Black men and other Americans back” is part of what her campaign calls an “opportunity agenda” aimed at winning the votes of African-American men in particular.
To that end, the campaign says Harris will “fight to ensure that as the national cannabis industry takes shape, Black men—who have, for years, been over-policed for marijuana use—are able to access wealth and jobs in this new market.”
She also recently included cannabis legalization as one of the top items on her “to-do list” if she wins the presidential election.
In September, Harris separately made clear she still supports legalizing cannabis, which she previously pushed for as a senator but had not publicly discussed since becoming President Joe Biden’s running mate in 2020.
“I just feel strongly, people should not be going to jail for smoking weed,” she said in an interview with the All the Smoke podcast. “And we know historically what that has meant and who has gone to jail.”
“Second, I just think we have come to a point where we have to understand that we need to legalize it and stop criminalizing this behavior,” Harris told hosts Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson, who are former NBA players.
“Actually this is not a new position for me,” Harris, who sponsored a federal cannabis legalization bill as a U.S. senator, said. “I have felt for a long time we need to legalize it. So that’s where I am on that.”
Harris has spoken in favor of federal legalization in the past, for example at a closed-door roundtable event with cannabis pardon recipients in March. In her previous run for president, Harris also backed full federal decriminalization for simple drug possession.
As vice president, Harris has repeatedly touted the administration’s moves to issue mass pardons to people who’ve committed federal cannabis possession offenses and direct a scheduling review that’s led the Justice Department to recommend reclassifying cannabis. She’s been critical of what she’s described as bureaucratic delays to that process, particularly as it concerns the Drug Enforcement Administration’s (DEA) role.
During her time in the Senate, Harris’s most notable contribution with respect to cannabis reform legislation was her sponsorship of the Marijuana Opportunity, Reinvestment and Expungement (MORE) Act, which would federally legalized cannabis and promoted social equity.
The senator first came out in support of legalization in 2018, adding her name to a different far-reaching bill introduced by Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ). The legislation, the Marijuana Justice Act, would remove cannabis from the list of federally banned substances and also penalize states where marijuana laws are enforced disproportionately against people of color. She also cosponsored the 2019 version of the bill.
Beyond the MORE Act and Marijuana Justice Act, Harris also co-sponsored the Secure and Fair Enforcement (SAFE) Banking Act, which would protect banks that work with marijuana businesses from federal punishment.
As Harris faced criticism over her relative silence on marijuana policy issues after becoming the party’s nominee, a resurfaced ACLU candidate questionnaire from 2019 showed she previously backed broader reform—specifically, full federal decriminalization of drug possession—when running for the office in 2020.
But it wasn’t always the case that Harris championed such drug policy reforms.
During an attempt to legalize marijuana in California through a 2010 initiative that appeared on the same ballot as Harris’s candidacy for state attorney general, she called the measure a “flawed public policy.”
She also co-authored an argument against the measure that appeared in the state’s official ballot guide, stating that legalization “seriously compromises the safety of our communities, roadways, and workplaces.”
Former President Donald Trump
Four years after losing his reelection bid to Biden—and months before Election Day 2024—Trump voiced support for federal marijuana rescheduling and industry banking access, while pledging to vote in favor of a Florida marijuana legalization ballot initiative.
Trump has predicted that Florida voters will approve the legalization initiative, arguing that “someone should not be a criminal in Florida, when this is legal in so many other States.”
“We need the State Legislature to responsibly create laws that prohibit the use of it in public spaces, so we do not smell marijuana everywhere we go, like we do in many of the Democrat run Cities,” he added. “At the same time, someone should not be a criminal in Florida, when this is legal in so many other States. We do not need to ruin lives & waste Taxpayer Dollars arresting adults with personal amounts of it on them, and no one should grieve a loved one because they died from fentanyl laced marijuana.”
“In Florida, like so many other States that have already given their approval, personal amounts of marijuana will be legalized for adults with Amendment 3,” he said. “Whether people like it or not, this will happen through the approval of the Voters, so it should be done correctly.”
He also said that medical marijuana has been “absolutely amazing” for patients, and that a Florida legalization initiative for recreational use is “going to be very good” for the state after it passes.
In a speech announcing his candidacy, Trump had initially signaled that drug policy would be a focal point of his campaign—but not by advocating for reform. He talked about waging “war on the cartels” and working with Congress to pass legislation to impose the death penalty on “drug dealers” who are “responsible for death, carnage and crime.”
Despite that extremist position, Trump came out in support of various cannabis reform proposals in September.
As president, Trump did not pursue a full-scale crackdown of state-legal cannabis programs and he did voice tentative support for modest reform legislation, but his administration made a number of hostile anti-marijuana actions—from rescinding Obama-era guidance on cannabis prosecutions to implementing policies making immigrants ineligible for citizenship if they consume marijuana or work in the cannabis industry.
While in office, Trump also signed a bill federally legalizing hemp following decades of its prohibition.
In 2018, the then-president gave advocates another reason to celebrate. Asked whether he supports a bipartisan bill filed by then-Sen. Cory Gardner (R-CO) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), which would allow states to set their own marijuana policies, Trump said “I really do.”
He reiterated his support for a states’ rights approach to marijuana in August 2019, saying it’s “a very big subject and right now we are allowing states to make that decision. A lot of states are making that decision, but we’re allowing states to make that decision.”
Despite his pledged support for states’ rights to legalize, Trump evidently holds some negative views toward cannabis consumption, as evidenced in a recording from 2018 that was leaked two years later. In that recording, he said that using marijuana makes people “lose IQ points.”
Also, while he’s now backed Florida’s legalization measure, he previously urged Republicans not to place marijuana reform initiatives on state ballots out of concern that it could increase Democratic turnout in elections.
Trump met with the head of a major cannabis company, Trulieve CEO Kim Rivers, ahead of announcing his support for the cannabis legalization initiative on Florida’s ballot, as well as with a GOP state senator who backs the measure, several sources confirmed to Marijuana Moment.
He followed up on his initial remarks on cannabis reform by saying in September 2024 that, as president, his administration would “continue to focus on research to unlock the medical uses of marijuana to a Schedule 3 drug, and work with Congress to pass common sense laws, including safe banking for state authorized companies, and supporting states rights to pass marijuana laws, like in Florida, that work so well for their citizens.”
The former president has also pledged to commute the sentence of dark web drug market Silk Road operator Russ Ulbricht if elected in November—despite his overall position that people who sell illegal drugs should face the death penalty.
Also, while it might come as a surprise, 30 years ago Trump argued in favor of legalizing all drugs.
“We’re losing badly the war on drugs. You have to legalize drugs to win that war. You have to take the profit away from these drug czars,” he said. “What I’d like to do maybe by bringing it up is cause enough controversy that you get into a dialogue on the issue of drugs so people will start to realize that this is the only answer; there is no other answer.”
Marijuana Under A Harris Or Trump Presidency
As with any election, it’s impossible to know to what extent—if at all—the winning candidate will see through their campaign promises, and marijuana issues are no exception. Also, while both Harris and Trump have backed key policy changes, it’s also the case that the prospects of comprehensive reform under either administration will likely hinge on the composition of Congress.
With Harris, advocates have a longer record to base their decision on. Sponsoring legalization legislation in the Senate and making a commitment to push for an end to federal prohibition if elected arguably gives the Democratic nominee more credentials, compared to the more states-focused reform platform Trump has adopted.
But on the flip side, if he were elected and continued to push the issue, some feel that could embolden Republican lawmakers who’ve previously held up cannabis legislation to get in line.
In any case, while voters have a choice next Tuesday between two ideologically disparate candidates on virtually every other key political issue, whomever they choose will have at least given reason to believe that they would not interfere in the ever-expanding marijuana legalization movement. And if they maintain a pro-reform agenda, that movement could ultimately see federal policy change on the horizon.
When voters head to the polls next Tuesday, they’ll have a chance to decide between two major party presidential nominees on diametrically opposite sides of the political spectrum, with at least one key exception: They both support legalizing marijuana at some level. This is a historic first in the U.S., with both Vice President Kamala Read More