California Sen. Kamala Harris said in a tweet Thursday she plans to support her fellow Democratic colleague Cory Booker’s legislation to legalize marijuana.
She made her announcement in a video for Now This News.
Harris said one of the reasons she supports the legislation is because of law enforcement’s treatment of African-Americans who use marijuana.
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“The fact is that marijuana laws are not applied and enforced in the same way for all people,” she said in the video. “So for example, African-Americans use marijuana at roughly the same rate as whites but are approximately four times as likely to be arrested for possession. That’s just not fair.”
Booker’s legislation would remove marijuana from the list of controlled substances, making it legal at the federal level.
It would also expunge federal marijuana use and possession crimes and allow someone serving time in federal prison for marijuana use or possession crimes to petition a court for a re-sentencing.
Booker introduced the legislation last August and Democratic New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand signed on earlier this year to be a cosponsor.
Last month, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, proposed legislation decriminalizing marijuana on a federal level.