US elections 2020

This image has been doctored to make it appear as though Kamala Harris is holding a joint

  • This article is more than one year old.
  • Published on December 8, 2020 at 05:00
  • 2 min read
  • By AFP Hong Kong

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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 here on Twitter on November 21, 2020.

It has been shared more than 500 times.

Screenshot taken on December 3, 2020, of the misleading Twitter post

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 here.

The image also circulated here and here on Twitter; here, here and here on Facebook; as well as here and here 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 this photo captured by Damian Dovarganes for the US news agency AP on January 30, 2015.

Screenshot of the photo on AP's website

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):

Screenshot comparison between the Twitter image (L) and the AP photo (R)

According to this article and this 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.

The same image was also debunked by Taiwanese fact-checking organization Taiwan FactCheck Center here.

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