Kamala Harris Consults With Cannabis Activists As San Francisco DA
By Chris Conrad
The author and other activists including fellow CCHS board member Michael Aldrich with then SF DA Kamala Harris in 2004.
Kamala Harris spoke at a medical marijuana forum to try to gain the cannabis vote. The City had voted to tolerate cannabis dispensaries and the legislature had enacted SB 420, allowing patient “collectives” to sell to qualified patients. We were all enamored of DA Hallinan, who had endorsed the Prop 215 medical marijuana initiative in 1996, supported legalization and brought down the number of marijuana arrests. Despite her opposition to the excesses of the drug war; she did not feel that was the right time for legalization. After she took office, arrests and convictions continued to decline for about a year. Then in 2006 came a big spike in the number of cases charged and filed. Likewise, more cases were being taken over by federal prosecutors that did not allow for medical marijuana defenses. The cannabis community felt betrayed and sought protection. Harris reached out to cannabis activists with an invitation to join an advisory group on how to navigate a difficult legal situation.
As the state’s most prominent expert witness to testify in cannabis cases, I was one of the invitees. At one meeting, we discussed how to let law enforcement protect the collectives and gardens authorized by the City, such as giving officers addresses or putting marks on the exteriors of buildings. Harris was concerned that such information could be leaked to criminal gangs who would then target the collectives, or the police officers themselves may use the information to identify grows and distributors, conduct raids and file charges in state or federal court. She said she could dismiss cases and devise protocols for her staff know how to differentiate cases that were legitimate from illegal operations.
“I want to stop the police before they even make contact with state-legal patients and collectives,” she said. “What can I do about that will rein in that part of the equation?” “Fire or transfer the lead narc who keeps raiding legal dispensaries and filing federal charges,” we answered in unison. Harris laughed. “I can’t control police operations, but I’ll see what I can do to get him reassigned.”
After that, the number of arrests and files charged dropped. We were not made privy to all her actions, but by late 2006, the spike in cases ended and from then on, the number of cases steadily declined and fell below the pace when Terrence Hallinan was DA. Harris had kept her word.
We were disappointed but not surprised when Harris opposed Richard Lee’s Prop 19 legalization while running for California Attorney General in 2010 and that she likewise opposed Prop 64 passed by voters in 2016. Her office did little to oppose it, however, other than expressing her lack of support. However, in the US Senate, she sponsored the MORE act to remove cannabis from the CSA. And when she ran for the Democratic nomination for president in 2020, she was outspoken in support of legalization.
