Trump Says He’s ‘Going To Look At’ Marijuana, As White House Chief Of Staff Receives Rescheduling Reports
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President Donald Trump’s administration is currently weighing whether to move forward with the marijuana rescheduling process initiated under the Biden administration, with the president recently telling donors that “we need to look at” the issue, according to reports.
“That’s something we’re going to look at,” Trump said at a $1 million-a-plate fundraising dinner at his Bedminster, New Jersey club recently, according to CNN and The Wall Street Journal.
The comments come as cannabis industry observers have waited for signals on whether the administration will follow through on the president’s campaign pledge to reschedule marijuana.
Trulieve CEO Kim Rivers was in attendance at the dinner where Trump briefly discussed marijuana this month, the Journal reported.
White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson told CNN that “all policy and legal requirements and implications are being considered” when it comes to marijuana.
“The only interest guiding the president’s policy decision is what is in the best interest of the American people,” she said.
CNN reported that there is dissent within the administration when it comes to cannabis, with some advisors urging the president to take action on the popular campaign pledge and others “cautioning that the moral and legal ramifications of loosening marijuana restrictions could outweigh the potential gains and even backfire politically.”
White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles has requested key agencies to submit their positions on cannabis rescheduling, CNN said, citing two sources that said those responses “now sit in a report on her desk.”
While Trump endorsed rescheduling cannabis—as well as industry banking access and a state-level legalization initiative in Florida—on the campaign trail last year, he’s been silent about the issue since taking office for his second term.
Newly published Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings show that a marijuana industry-funded political committee donated $1 million to Trump’s MAGA Inc. super PAC in the first half of this year. Trulieve, whose CEO Rivers attended the recent dinner where Trump discussed cannabis, contributed $250,000 to the industry PAC.
The PAC also reported an expenditure $120,500 to a strategic consulting and research firm associated with Trump, Fabrizio, Lee & Associates, LLC, for “legal” services. The same firm conducted a survey of registered voters that showed a majority of Republicans back a variety of cannabis reforms that is promoted on the PAC’s website.
The owner of the major gardening supply company Scotts Miracle-Gro recently said Trump has told him directly “multiple times” since taking office that he intends to see through the marijuana rescheduling process.
Earlier FEC records also previously showed that Trulieve and Curaleaf contributed a total of $1 million to Trump’s inaugural committee following his election last November.
Trump’s former acting head of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) also recently predicted that the administration will soon “dig in” to the state-federal marijuana policy conflict, emphasizing the need to “eliminate confusion, not create it” amid the rescheduling push.
Meanwhile, Terrence Cole, who was sworn in last month as the new administrator of the DEA, declined to include rescheduling on a list of “strategic priorities” the agency that instead focused on anti-trafficking enforcement, Mexican cartels, the fentanyl supply chain, drug-fueled violence, cryptocurrency, the dark web and a host of other matters.
That’s despite the fact that Cole said during a confirmation hearing in April that examining the government’s pending marijuana rescheduling proposal would be “one of my first priorities” after taking office.
Earlier this week, former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer predicted that Trump would not legalize marijuana, though that is a separate issue from the current rescheduling proposal under consideration.
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