In the hours after President Joe Biden endorsed Kamala Harris to take his place atop the Democratic ticket in the 2024 presidential race, Americans began hastily searching for information about the vice president's stance on various issues – including the legalization of marijuana.

Harris' position on weed has evolved over her years in public service, becoming more progressive as she ascended to federal office.

As vice president, she championed the Biden administration offering pardons for Americans convicted of federal marijuana possession and the landmark changes reclassifying marijuana as a less dangerous and addictive drug. There's even a strain of weed, Kamala Kush, named after her, which Jimmy Kimmel joked about during an interview with Harris last month.

The California Democrat has advocated for decriminalizing marijuana but she wasn't always so lenient. Harris has been criticized for aggressively prosecuting weed-related crimes when she was California's attorney general and San Francisco's district attorney, particularly given the the racial disparities in punishment nationwide. Data shows that African Americans are more likely than whites to be arrested for pot. Harris' loosening opposition to marijuana appears to have begun when she was in the U.S. Senate, in the lead-up to her 2020 presidential bid. And experts say her evolution could continue if she becomes the Democratic candidate and wins the election.

"During her time in the White House, the vice president has been an even stronger advocate for [ending] any cannabis prohibition and restoring or repairing the harms that it has caused than the president has been, and in many ways, has been a real leader on this issue, particularly as it relates to criminal justice reform," Morgan Fox, political director of NORML, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, the country's oldest cannabis legalization advocacy group, told USA TODAY.

Harris called for changes to federal rules on marijuana

In 2022, Biden directed the Department of Health and Human Services to review how marijuana is classified and subsequently recommended it be reclassified as a less dangerous drug. In March, Harris called on HHS and the Justice Department to speed up reclassification during a discussion with rapper Fat Joe and others who had been pardoned for weed convictions.

For decades, the Drug Enforcement Administration classified pot among the most dangerous controlled substances, which Harris said was wrong.

"Marijuana is considered as dangerous as heroin and more dangerous than fentanyl, which is absurd, not to mention patently unfair," Harris said at the event.

Harris again called for "change to our nation's approach to marijuana" at the gathering held at 4:20 p.m. on April 20, the unofficial holiday celebrating weed. "Nobody should have to go to jail for smoking weed," she said on the social media platform X.

In May, the Justice Department moved to reclassify the drug. This would change marijuana from a Schedule I to Schedule III drug under the Controlled Substances Act, marking the biggest shift in marijuana policy the federal government has made since pot was first outlawed.

The DOJ hasn't finalized the decision, and Fox, from NORML, said it's difficult to know exactly how long the process might take. Opponents have made a concerted effort to delay the rescheduling, he said. 

Schedule I drugs are considered highly dangerous and addictive and do not have a medical use, whereas Schedule III drugs, such as Tylenol with codeine and anabolic steroids, are believed to have a moderate to low potential for physical and psychological dependence and may be lawfully prescribed as medication.

Harris introduced legislation to decriminalize marijuana

Just a week after she announced her presidential bid in January 2019, Harris told the hosts on the radio program "The Breakfast Club" that she was in favor of legalizing marijuana and had smoked a joint while in college.

"I did inhale. It was a long time ago. But, yes," she said, referencing Bill Clinton's statement, when he was running for president, that he'd tried pot but didn't like it and didn't inhale.

Harris, who has faced criticism from progressives for her tough-on-crime approach to criminal justice, acknowledged that in the past she "had concerns" about marijuana. During the interview, Harris also joked about her Jamaican heritage when asked about her history with marijuana, which drew criticism from her father Donald J. Harris, an emeritus economics professor at Stanford University.

“Speaking for myself and my immediate Jamaican family, we wish to categorically dissociate ourselves from this travesty,” he said in a statement to Kingston-based Jamaica Global Online, according to Politico.

As Harris, then junior senator for California, emerged as a top contender in the crowded Democratic primary field during the 2020 election, she introduced legislation to decriminalize and tax marijuana at the federal level. The Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement Act would have also triggered resentencing or expunged charges for marijuana convictions and allocated 50% of tax revenue generated by the marijuana industry to three trust funds.

“Times have changed – marijuana should not be a crime,” Harris said when she announced the proposed legislation. “We need to start regulating marijuana and expunge marijuana convictions from the records of millions of Americans so they can get on with their lives."

As a senator, she also cosponsored the Marijuana Justice Act introduced by Sen. Cory Booker, who also ran in the 2020 presidential race.

Harris took a genuine interest in criminal justice reform when she was a senator, said Maritza Perez Medina, director of federal affairs at the Drug Policy Alliance. "She talked about it, and not just talked about it, she introduced legislation and supported legislation to reform our criminal justice system, marijuana being just one piece of that, and she always talked about it from a racial justice perspective, which I really appreciated."

Harris' marijuana convictions in California

When Harris was San Francisco's district attorney, she supported the legal use of medical marijuana but opposed a 2010 measure to legalize pot in California, according to the Los Angeles Times. During her tenure, she oversaw the conviction of more than 1,900 people for weed violations, The Mercury News reported. Prosecutors on her staff convicted people on these charges at a rate higher than under her predecessor, however, most of the defendants were not incarcerated for low-level pot possession, according to the outlet.

More than 2,000 people were incarcerated in California state prisons for marijuana and hashish-related offenses while Harris was the state's attorney general. As she sought reelection for the state position in 2014, Harris declined to comment one way or the other about her then-opponent's support for legalizing recreational marijuana in an interview.

"Your opponent, Ron Gold, has said that he is for the legalization of marijuana recreationally. Your thoughts on that?" KCRA-TV asked Harris.

"Um, I – that he is entitled to his opinion," she replied.

The following year, during the 2015 Democratic State Convention, Harris called for an end to the federal ban on medical marijuana. Kevin Sabet, president of Smart Approaches to Marijuana, said he believes the concern from pro-legalization advocates about Harris' record as a prosecutor is likely overstated.

"I don't think she personally was targeting ... simple marijuana users," he said. "I think that's been overblown."

What Harris could do as president

Fox, political director of NORML, said the tremendous transformation Harris has undergone on marijuana policy "is really indicative of a base level of change in philosophy" that reflects a broader shift in the beliefs of the vast majority of Americans. Nearly 90% of U.S. adults say marijuana should be legal for medical or recreational use, according to a March report from the Pew Research Center.

Fox said if Harris becomes the Democratic candidate and wins the election he suspects she would publicly support descheduling marijuana, which would be "a great step in the right direction." Marijuana would have to be descheduled, or removed from the Controlled Substances Act list altogether, to resolve the stark difference between state and federal laws, experts and advocates previously told USA TODAY. Though marijuana is still illegal under federal law, weed is legal in some capacity in nearly 40 states and in Washington, D.C.

Sabet, however, said he believes Harris would "tread carefully" and likely adopt a similar position to Biden if she were elected. She would advocate for reforms and continue to issue pardons but would oppose full legalization, he said. Sabet, a former White House drug policy advisor to Presidents Obama, Bush and Clinton, added that he believes her shift on marijuana policy is likely driven by political calculations rather than the genuine support of legalization that fellow California Democrats such as Gov. Gavin Newsom have expressed.

"She's got a complicated relationship, but I think it's been one lately that's been driven more by politics than science," he said.

Perez Medina, from the Drug Policy Alliance, thinks the impetus for Harris' shift is likely a mix of politics and fact-finding, calling Harris "a really savvy politician."

"It took her perhaps longer than we would like to get here, but I think now she gets it," she said. "She gets that this is a racial justice issue, first and foremost."

Contributing: Rebecca Morin, Francesca Chambers, Joel Shannon, Joey Garrison, Jeanine Santucci, Eduardo Cuevas and Michael Collins, USA TODAY; Reuters