VP Harris calls for marijuana rescheduling, leniency

Florida gets up to speed in awarding licenses to cannabis growers.

Vice President Kamala Harris and rapper Fat Joe led a White House discussion Friday on easing marijuana penalties, with Harris saying it’s “absurd” that the federal government classifies marijuana as more dangerous than fentanyl, the synthetic opioid blamed for tens of thousands of deaths annually the United States.

Harris, a former state prosecutor in California, also criticized the federal classification of cannabis as “patently unfair.” The government currently is reviewing how it classifies marijuana, and Harris urged that the process be wrapped up as quickly as possible.

Fat Joe, a Grammy-nominated artist and philanthropist whose real name is Joseph Cartagena, moderated a subsequent closed-door discussion that included Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear and individuals who received pardons for prior marijuana convictions.

“I cannot emphasize enough that they need to get to it as quickly as possible and we need to have a resolution based on their findings and their assessment,” Harris said of the Departments of Health and Human Services and Justice, which are handling the review.

“But this issue is stark when one considers the fact that on the schedule currently marijuana is considered as dangerous as heroin,” she said during the public portion of the meeting. “Marijuana is considered as dangerous as heroin and more dangerous than fentanyl, which is absurd. Not to mention patently unfair.”

U.S. regulators are studying reclassifying marijuana shifting it from a drug that has “no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse,” known as “Schedule I,” to the less tightly regulated “Schedule III.”

President Joe Biden mentioned the marijuana classification review during his State of the Union address earlier this month. He said during a campaign appearance in Milwaukee this week that “no one should be jailed for marijuana.”

“If you’re just using, you should have that wiped off your record,” Biden said.