Singer and marijuana icon Willie Nelson is organizing a virtual “Cannabis Community for Kamala” event this week—with featured speakers including Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D), a congresswoman and Whoopi Goldberg—to shore up support for the Democratic presidential nominee ahead of the election by highlighting her marijuana reform record.
The event, which will take place on Zoom on Thursday, will emphasize “the importance of cannabis reform in America,” according to a statement. This comes weeks after Vice President Kamala Harris reaffirmed her support for federal marijuana legalization and pledged to make it the “law of the land” if she’s elected.
“I’m excited to bring together such an amazing group of people to talk about something we all care about deeply,” Nelson said. “Cannabis is a path to healing, opportunity, and justice, and supporting leaders like Kamala Harris who understand that is crucial to putting an end to the federal prohibition and undoing the harms it caused to so many, particularly to communities of color where it has been disproportionately enforced.”
To that point, while former President Donald Trump also recently endorsed a Florida cannabis legalization ballot initiative, as well as certain federal reforms such as industry banking access and rescheduling, Harris has stressed that her support for reform is rooted in a criminal justice-centered interest to right the wrongs of criminalization.
Singers Brittney Spencer and Margo Price, as well as Rep. Brittany Pettersen (D-CO) and lawyer Dahr Jamail, are also slated to speak at the virtual event this week.
Late last month, Nelson also hosted Harris’s husband, Douglas Emhoff, and former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-TX) at his ranch in Luck, Texas. It’s unclear if the topic of marijuana reform came up; however, O’Rourke has also been a longtime advocate for ending prohibition at the state and federal level.
Nelson, meanwhile, has separately urged voters in Dallas to pass a marijuana decriminalization measure that will appear on their local ballots in November. Early voting for that kicked off on Monday.
“Marijuana is an herb and a flower, not a crime,” Nelson said in a press release distributed by Ground Game Texas, which is organizing cannabis campaign. “Proposition R in Dallas is about fairness and freedom. It’s long past time to end the criminalization of weed in Texas.”
The singer also said in 2018 that he’d be more than happy to smoke cannabis with Trump, former President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
For now, though, it seems Nelson’s ideal rotation centers around the Democratic candidates: Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D).
Last month, Walz said he thinks marijuana legalization is an issue that should be left to individual states, adding that electing more Democrats to Congress could also make it easier to pass federal reforms like cannabis banking protections.
The Harris–Walz campaign, has accused Trump of lying about his support for marijuana reform—arguing that his “blatant pandering” runs counter to his administration’s record on cannabis.
Following Trump’s recent announcement of support for the Florida cannabis legalization ballot measure, the Democratic campaign has been working to remind voters that while in office, Trump “took marijuana reform backwards.”
For his part, Nelson, who owns the cannabis company Willie’s Reserve, also made headlines in 2019 after saying that he’d stopped smoking marijuana—while still consuming in other forms—his son later said that “it’s safe to say Willie will never stop enjoying Mary Jane.”
Former President Jimmy Carter also discussed a time when his son smoked marijuana at the White House with Nelson during his administration in a CNN documentary in 2020.
Photo courtesy of Skechers.
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