Marijuana reform advocates demand an apology from Kamala Harris for locking up pot smokers and slam her 'political hypocrisy' for now saying no one should 'go to jail for smoking weed!'

Marijuana reform advocates want Vice President Kamala Harris to apologize for locking up people for the use and possession of marijuana, even as she tries to rehabilitate her image as a compassionate reformer.

Harris held a roundtable meeting with reform advocates at the White House on Friday, calling for criminal justice reform on the issue.

‘Nobody should have to go to jail for smoking weed!’ she said during the event with rapper Fat Joe and others.

However, marijuana reform advocates say Harris' work on reform is hypocritical. 

As a District Attorney of San Francisco, she oversaw more than 1,900 convictions for the use or possession of marijuana according to public records. Harris also opposed the legalization of marijuana for recreational use until she ran for California’s Senate seat in 2015.

‘She absolutely has no moral authority to speak on this issue whatsoever,’ marijuana legal reform advocate Steve DeAngelo told the DailyMail.com after Harris’ event at the White House. 

‘She has no right to speak about cannabis at all except to apologize for her hypocrisy.’

US Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a roundtable conversation about marijuana reform at the White House

 Rapper Fat Joe joined Harris to talk about criminal justice reform on the issue of marijuana

In addition, during her 2010 campaign for Attorney General of California, Harris opposed a ballot proposition that would legalize marijuana which led to a big defeat for the movement. 

Advocates like DeAngelo understand why President Joe Biden and Harris are highlighting the popular issue ahead of the 2024 election, but urged them to actually do something that would make a critical impact.

‘They’re giving out cookie crumbs when they could actually be helping folks in a very serious way,’ Jason Ortiz, the Director of Strategic Initiatives for the Last Prisoner Project told DailyMail.com.

Ortiz said that despite Biden’s 2022 federal pardon of thousands of marijuana convictions, ‘zero cannabis prisoners’ had actually been released from prison as a result of his action. (The list of pardon applied to individuals already out of prison.)

The Last Prisoner Project is advocating for Biden to use his clemency powers to release 3,000 federal cannabis prisoners, and are planning to mobilize a protest outside the White House in April to raise awareness of the issue.

Ortiz described the White House event hosted by Harris as ‘a bit of a slap in the face’ to advocates, even though he appreciated her using her platform as vice president to raise the issue. But he called for Biden and Harris to do more.

He said an apology from Harris would go a long way, specifically as someone who was part of the problem for so many years.

‘Her approach and her talking points, and comments on this issue ring a bit hollow, especially for the folks still incarcerated and probably were incarcerated in California under her regime,’ Ortiz said.

Advocates for legal reform also prefer to use the word ‘cannabis,’ to talk about marijuana use, using the scientific definition to describe the plant. 

Flanked by US musician Fat Joe (L) and Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear (R), US Vice President Kamala Harris (C) speaks during a roundtable conversation about marijuana reform

Steve DeAngelo is an advocate for cannabis legalization and criminal justice reform

DeAngelo described the Harris event as a ‘cynical and pathetic display of political hypocrisy.’

‘Kamala Harris has been trying to play both sides of the fence on this issue for years and years and years,’ he said.

When running for re-election in 2014, Harris only laughed when asked by reporters if she supported legalized marijuana. 

And during her campaign for president, Harris laughed during a 2019 interview with The Breakfast Club when revealing her own use of marijuana.

‘I have. And I inhaled. I did inhale,’ she said, admitting to smoking ‘a joint’ in college. ‘It was a long time ago, but yes. I just broke news!’