On Wednesday, MSNBC played a clip of 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) discussing marijuana policy at the “She the People” presidential forum in Houston.
When asked about the “gentrification” of the legal marijuana industry, Harris said, “Invariably a lot of the people who historically who were arrested for marijuana sales were young men, young men of color. And so isn’t that the irony of it all? That now this is one of the fastest growing money-making industries in our country and the very young men who were trying to make money doing the same thing, but got criminalized and have now been branded felons for life are excluded from the economic opportunities that are now available because of this new industry.”
She continued, “There have to be policies in place and look at the background and actually do the work of saying some of those young men should be first in line to get the jobs that are available. And that their felony convictions should not be the barrier to them having employment in an industry they were a part of before it was an industry.”
She added, “They were ahead of the curve.”
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