Election season is creeping up, and cannabis policy may play a role in which way voters sway this year. Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris recently announced Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate, making this the first-ever major presidential ticket in which both nominees outwardly support marijuana legalization.
If the pair gets elected, Walz will be the first vice president to have legalized recreational marijuana in their own state before taking office.
Minnesota hasn’t started legal sales just yet, but Walz signed the bill into law in May 2023. He also supported supervised drug consumption facilities and the creation of a Psychedelic Medicine Task Force in his state.
His track record with weed in Congress is nearly spotless. Walz voted in favor of the Rohrabacher-Farr Amendment, which bars the Department of Justice (DOJ) from spending federal funds to interfere with state-approved medical cannabis programs. He also voted in favor of an amendment that would have prohibited states from penalizing a bank for working with a licensed cannabis business.
Walz spoke out against Trump’s first attorney general, Jeff Sessions, when the DOJ head rescinded the Cole Memo — an Obama-era direction from then-Deputy Attorney General James Cole that instructed federal prosecutors to leave state-licensed medical cannabis businesses alone as long as they aren’t breaking local laws.
“Jeff Sessions is dead set on overruling states that have legalized recreational or medical cannabis, including MN,” Walz posted on X at the time. “I’ll keep fighting alongside the 83 percent of vets and caregivers who support legalizing medical cannabis nationally.”
Walz called for the full legalization of recreational weed in Minnesota as far back as 2017. In 2019 — his first year as governor — he told the state’s various agencies to begin preparing for a legal cannabis market. This was done at a time when the state’s Legislature was controlled by Republicans who did not support legalization. He told reporters at the time that he wanted the state to be ready to implement a regulatory system immediately after any legislation passed. It would be four years before such a bill was finally signed into law.
Under Walz’s governance, Minnesota Department of Public Safety (DPS) expunged 57,780 cannabis crime records nearly three months ahead of the state’s schedule.
Meanwhile, JD Vance, Trump’s running mate, has a much different view of marijuana. Vance voted against the SAFER Banking Act, which would allow banks to work with cannabis businesses without fearing federal prosecution, claiming that the bill would legalize banking for fentanyl dealers. He also didn’t support recreational legalization in his home state of Ohio.
However, Vance has said that he’s against arresting low-level marijuana offenders. In a May interview with Ask a Pol, he said: “My view on weed is, like, we have to strike a balance between, you don’t want people thrown in prison for having a dime bag.”
But he also went on to say that legalization “pollutes” public spaces.
“You take your kids downtown Cincinnati to go to a restaurant, and you walk by, like, five people who are stoned. It smells terrible. Like, I don’t want that,” he said.
And although Trump has remained aloof on the topic of cannabis, he has implied that the death penalty should be used to punish drug dealers.
“It’s terrible to say, but you take a look at every country in this world that doesn’t have a problem with drugs, they have a very strong death penalty for people that sell drugs,” Trump said during a speech at the America First Policy Institute in 2022.
He walked back the statement more recently, saying he’d only seek the death penalty for certain unspecified drug trafficking offenses.
In comparison, the Harris-Walz ticket is a historic first in which both candidates support broad cannabis law reform up to, and including, legalization at the federal level. Harris’ history is marred by her time with the California Department of Justice, where she notoriously fought criminal justice reforms, tried to fight paying compensation to a man who was wrongfully imprisoned for nine years and even fought to keep nonviolent prisoners locked up despite a Supreme Court order to release them. She also reportedly oversaw 1,900 cannabis convictions and fought cannabis legalization in California.
Harris’ tough-on-crime policies have returned to damage her reputation among progressive voters in recent years, but she has done a complete about-face on these issues.
As a member of Congress, she introduced legislation that would have legalized marijuana federally and co-sponsored legislation that would have removed marijuana from the list of controlled substances. During her time as vice president, Harris has repeatedly called for federal cannabis law reform. She even reportedly called for full legalization at the federal level while discussing policies with former federal cannabis prisoners who received a presidential pardon for their crimes.