The political tug-of-war over one-issue weed voters has officially begun. In a late-stage twist, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump recently signaled support for a proposed legalization resolution in Florida, saying people should not be jailed over marijuana. Voters now have a choice between two candidates who have expressed dissatisfaction about current cannabis policy.
“We do not need to ruin lives & waste Taxpayer Dollars arresting adults with personal amounts of [marijuana] on them,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Aug. 31.
The comment was part of a post about Florida’s Amendment 3, which would legalize possession of up to 3 ounces of marijuana and would authorize medical cannabis dispensaries and anyone who is licensed by the state to sell weed products to any adult. The resolution is a ballot initiative from last year that received nearly 1 million verified signatures from voters in support of it.
However, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and Florida GOP lawmakers have been fighting the resolution tooth and nail. DeSantis even joined forces with hemp-derived intoxicant producers to campaign against the coming measure.
“Whether people like it or not, this will happen through the approval of the Voters, so it should be done correctly,” Trump said in his post. “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. At the same time, someone should not be a criminal in Florida, when this is legal in so many other States.”
Last week he went into more detail during an interview on the Lex Fridman podcast.
“Medical marijuana has been amazing,” Trump said. “I’ve had friends and I’ve had others — and doctors — telling me that it’s been absolutely amazing.”
He said it has to be done in a “concerted lawful way.” “The way they’re doing it in Florida, I think is going to be actually good,” he said.
In comparison, he complained about the way you can smell the drug while walking around in New York City.
“You take a look at the numbers. It’s been very hard to beat it,” Trump said. “So, I think it will generally pass, but you want to do it in a safe way.”
Trump was asked about psychedelics, and he avoided the question completely, although he did chuckle when Fridman said, “We’d probably have a better world if everybody in Congress took some mushrooms, perhaps.”
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign criticized Trump for the move, calling it a “brazen flip-flop.”
“As a candidate in 2024, he suggests he is for decriminalizing marijuana—but as President, his own Justice Department cracked down on marijuana offenses,” a memo from the Harris campaign reads.
The statement is likely in reference to Trump-era Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ move to rescind the Cole Memo — an instruction from the Barack Obama administration that protected legal medical marijuana businesses from federal prosecution.
The Harris campaign memo however, failed to note that the Department of Justice under Trump never made any moves against state-licensed cannabis businesses during his tenure and that the Joe Biden administration never reinstated the memo.
Harris has a somewhat questionable history with cannabis policy and changed her stance on it in 2019 while vying for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Trump called her out for it during an interview on Fox News.
“She was a bad prosecutor. She was a prosecutor of black people,” he said. “She put thousands and thousands of black people in jail over marijuana. But when it came to big crime — murders and everything else — she was weak.”
But Harris does have a consistent history of supporting progressive marijuana reform over the last five years, meaning it’s a flip-flop that seems to have stuck — placing her farther ahead than Trump in this respect, since he’s only been (tentatively) pro-weed for a few weeks.
Trump is also known as a staunch teetotaler who has never had time for weed. He’s also gone as far as to call for the execution of drug dealers, although he’s walked that back.
Only days before Trump made his announcement supporting Florida’s legalization measure, he reportedly met with multi-state cannabis operator Trulieve CEO Kim Rivers and other industry stakeholders, according to Marijuana Moment. Trulieve has contributed over $70 million to the Smart & Safe Florida pro-measure campaign and is one of the biggest stakeholders pushing for its passage.
Whatever the reason, voters are finally going to see an election where candidates from the two major parties are competing to be the pro-weed choice. Times are strange.