Trump Backs Federal Marijuana Rescheduling And Cannabis Industry Banking Access
Published on September 9, 2024By Tom Angell
Former President Donald Trump says he supports federally rescheduling marijuana and opening up access to banking services for businesses in the cannabis industry. He is also reiterating his support for the legalization initiative on Florida’s November ballot.
“As President, we will continue to focus on research to unlock the medical uses of marijuana to a Schedule 3 drug, and work with Congress to pass common sense laws, including safe banking for state authorized companies, and supporting states rights to pass marijuana laws, like in Florida, that work so well for their citizens,” Trump said in a post on his site Truth Social on Sunday night.
The 2024 Republican presidential nominee made clear that he will be voting in support of legalizing cannabis in Florida, where he is a resident.
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“As I have previously stated, I believe it is time to end needless arrests and incarcerations of adults for small amounts of marijuana for personal use,” he said. “We must also implement smart regulations, while providing access for adults, to safe, tested product. As a Floridian, I will be voting YES on Amendment 3 this November.”
The support for rescheduling cannabis under the Controlled Substances Act will allay some fears that a Trump administration could reverse progress on the issue that was initiated—but has not yet been completed—by the Biden administration.
The Department of Health and Humans Services has recommended moving marijuana to Schedule III, but that has faced some resistance from the Drug Enforcement Administration, which has scheduled a hearing on the proposal for December 2—after the presidential election, raising concerns that the process will not be completed until after a new president is inaugurated.
Trump’s latest marijuana post follows up on one he made last month in which he indicated—but did not explicitly say—he supported Amendment 3 in Florida. The earlier comments predicted that Florida voters would approve the cannabis measure and generally discussed the benefits of legalization, but left some observers wanting more clarity on the former president’s position on the specific state initiative.
“In Florida, like so many other States that have already given their approval, personal amounts of marijuana will be legalized for adults with Amendment 3,” Trump said in the prior post. “Whether people like it or not, this will happen through the approval of the Voters, so it should be done correctly.”
“We need the State Legislature to responsibly create laws that prohibit the use of it in public spaces, so we do not smell marijuana everywhere we go, like we do in many of the Democrat run Cities,” he added at the time. “At the same time, someone should not be a criminal in Florida, when this is legal in so many other States. We do not need to ruin lives & waste Taxpayer Dollars arresting adults with personal amounts of it on them, and no one should grieve a loved one because they died from fentanyl laced marijuana.”
Trump then discussed the medical benefits of cannabis and said legalization would be “very good” for Florida in an interview with Lex Fridman last week.
“Medical marijuana has been amazing,” he said, adding the he has “had friends and I’ve had others and doctors telling me that it’s been absolutely amazing, the medical marijuana.”
On broader legalization, he said “it’s got to be a certain age” to purchase. “It’s got to be done in a very concerted, lawful way. And the way they’re doing it in Florida, I think is going to be actually good. It’s going to be very good, but it’s got to be done in a good way. It’s got to be done in a clean way.”
Prior to announcing his support for marijuana reform, Trump met with the CEO of Trulieve Cannabis Corp., a large company that has provided the vast majority of funding in support of the Florida legalization campaign.
Last month at a press conference, Trump told a reporter that he’s starting to “agree a lot more” that people should not be criminalized over marijuana given that it’s “being legalized all over the country”—adding that he would “fairly soon” reveal his position on the Florida ballot measure.
“As we legalize it, I start to agree a lot more because, you know, it’s being legalized all over the country,” Trump said at the time. “Florida has something coming up. I’ll be making a statement about that fairly soon.”
A reporter had asked about the Biden-Harris administration push to reschedule cannabis, as well as Vice President Kamala Harris, the 2024 Democratic presidential nominee, stating repeatedly that people should not be incarcerated over simple cannabis offenses.
“As we legalize it throughout the country—whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing—it’s awfully hard to have people all over the jails that are in jail right now for something that’s legal,” Trump replied. “So I think obviously there’s a lot of sentiment to doing that.”
Following Trump’s recent announcement of support for the Florida cannabis legalization ballot measure, the campaign for Harris is working to remind voters that while in office, Trump “took marijuana reform backwards.”
In a memo from a senior campaign spokesperson, the Harris campaign accused Trump of “brazen flip flops” on cannabis. The Democratic campaign says it’s one of the Republican former president’s “several bewildering ‘policy proposals’ that deserve real scrutiny.”
“On issue after issue, Trump is saying one thing after having done another,” the memo says. “For example: As a candidate in 2024, he suggests he is for decriminalizing marijuana – but as President, his own Justice Department cracked down on marijuana offenses.”
The claim appears to be a reference to the move by Trump-era Attorney General Jeff Sessions to rescind the so-called Cole memo, which provided guidance to federal prosecutors not to interfere with operations of well regulated state marijuana systems.
Meanwhile, longtime ally and GOP political operative Roger Stone, who is also a Florida resident and supports the legalization proposal, separately told Marijuana Moment that if Trump did ultimately endorse the measure it would “guarantee victory.”
Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC), who is sponsoring a bill to federally legalize marijuana called the States Reform Act, separately said that while she hoped Trump would back the Biden administration’s rescheduling move, she also said part of the reason Republicans in Congress have declined to embrace marijuana policy change is because they’re “afraid of it.”
Trump also recently went after Harris over her prosecutorial record on marijuana, claiming that she put “thousands and thousands of Black people in jail” for cannabis offenses—but the full record of her time in office is more nuanced.
Trump’s line of attack, while misleading, was nonetheless notable in the sense that the GOP presidential nominee implied that he disagrees with criminalizing people over marijuana and is moving to leverage the idea that Harris played a role in racially disproportionate mass incarceration.
Meanwhile, Harris selected Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) as her running mate, choosing a candidate who backed numerous cannabis reform measures in Congress, called for an end to prohibition when he was running for governor and then signed a comprehensive legalization bill into law in 2023.
As president, Trump largely stayed true to his position that marijuana laws should be handled at the state-level, with no major crackdown on cannabis programs as some feared after then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions rescinded the Obama era federal enforcement guidance. In fact, Trump criticized the top DOJ official and suggested the move should be reversed.
While he was largely silent on the issue of legalization, he did tentatively endorse a bipartisan bill to codify federal policy respecting states’ rights to legalize.
That said, on several occasions he released signing statements on spending legislation stipulating that he reserved the right to ignore a long-standing rider that prohibits the Justice Department from using its funds to interfere with state-legal medical marijuana programs.
Before President Joe Biden bowed out of the race, his campaign made much of the president’s mass cannabis pardons and rescheduling push, drawing a contrast with the Trump administration’s record. The Harris campaign so far has not spoken to that particular issue, and the nominee has yet to publicly discuss marijuana policy issues since her own campaign launched.
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