This image of Vice President-elect Kamala Harris holding a joint is fake
This image of Vice President-elect Kamala Harris holding a joint is fake
(AFP) - An image has been shared tens of thousands of times in multiple Twitter, Facebook and WeChat posts which claim it shows US Vice President-elect Kamala Harris holding a burning cannabis cigarette while confessing to the public that she is a long-term addict. The claim is false; the image has been doctored from a photo taken by the US news agency Associated Press; Harris did not mention drugs during the speech at which the photograph was taken, in January 2015.
The image was published on Twitter on November 21, 2020.
It has been shared more than 500 times.
The post’s simplified Chinese-language caption translates to English as: “Democratic vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris lit cannabis during her speech, telling the public that she is a long-term addict and promised to legalise drug trafficking across the United States. She is determined to destroy the United States. If virtue is not worthy, there will be disaster!”
Kamala Harris was elected Vice President of the United States during the US vote in November 2020 -- the first woman to hold the position, AFP reported.
The image also circulated on Twitter; on Facebook; as well as in WeChat articles, alongside a similar claim with tens of thousands of shares.
The claim is false.
A Google reverse image search of the image and further keyword searches found a photo captured by Damian
Dovarganes for the US news agency AP on January 30, 2015.
In the original image, Harris is not holding anything in her right hand.
The caption of the photo states: “Kamala Harris, California’s attorney general keynotes the UCLA Law Review Symposium:
‘Examining the Roots of Human Trafficking and Exploitation,’ at the UCLA campus in Los Angeles Friday, Jan. 30, 2015.
Harris has announced her candidacy for U.S. Sen Barbara Boxer,’s open seat.”
Below is a screenshot comparison between the Twitter image (L) and the AP photo (R):
According to an article and a magazine page published by the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Harris spoke about human trafficking at the UCLA Law Review Symposium on January 30, 2015.
