If Trump Reschedules Marijuana, ‘The Game Is Over For Democrats,’ President’s First Pick For Attorney General Says
From toxifillers.com with love
A former GOP congressman who President Donald Trump initially nominated to serve as U.S. attorney general during the current term is renewing his call for marijuana rescheduling—saying the “game is over for Democrats at the ballot box” if the president moves forward on the reform, which he said he’d decide on within weeks.
Former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), who withdrew from consideration for the AG position amid unrelated controversies, dedicated a significant portion of his One America News show on Monday to discussing federal cannabis laws.
Gaetz, who was the sole GOP member to cosponsor a Democratic-led marijuana legalization bill while in Congress, said, “If there’s one thing Americans love more than low gas prices and a secure border, it’s making sure our laws at least make actual sense in the decade in which we live right now.”
Noting that marijuana currently remains in Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), Gaetz said that effectively means “the federal government believes weed is just as bad as heroin and somehow worse than fentanyl.”
Under the rescheduling proposal that was initiated under the Biden administration and now sits before the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), marijuana would be moved to Schedule III of the CSA. That wouldn’t federally legalize the plant, but it would free up licensed cannabis retailers to access banking services and help facilitate research.
“Rescheduling is the government saying, ‘okay, maybe this isn’t the same as crack cocaine—and maybe doctors should be allowed to prescribe it without acting like they’re handing out plutonium,’” he said. “And here’s the kicker: We already have half the country allowed to use cannabis under the color of state law.”
“States like Florida, California, Colorado and so many others—even red states, they’ve got dispensaries that look like Apple stores. You walk in and it’s like a Genius Bar for THC,” Gaetz said. “People are paying taxes on it. Landlords are getting profitable tenants. Jobs are being created. What’s Uncle Sam doing? Pretending it’s still a cartel product smuggled into the country in a hollowed-out coconut.”
“If President Trump does this, the game is over for Democrats at the ballot box. We could be the party that allows people to safely use marijuana without pretending it’s for your glaucoma-ridden cat,” he said. “It’s populism meets practicality. Suddenly, MAGA hats in line at the dispensary, patriots buying prerolls called ‘1776 Freedom Kush.’ Beautiful.”
Trump made his first public comments on cannabis since taking office on Monday, but he didn’t specify where he stood—despite endorsing the policy change on the campaign trail. He said a decision would be coming within weeks, however.
“Now don’t get me wrong: There are still people clutching their pearls saying buying marijuana is a gateway drug,” Gaetz said. “Yeah, so is drinking Mountain Dew if you consume enough of it. In reality, marijuana is more like a gateway to eating three sleeves of Oreos and having deep thoughts about how ceiling fans work.”
“Rescheduling also has a law and order angle that nobody talks about. You clear the nonsense marijuana charges out of the system and you free up the courts, the police and prisons to deal with actual criminals. I’d rather have the cops chasing MS-13 than some guy in a Phish t-shirt growing three plants in his garage. And let’s not forget: the war on drugs has been a lot like many of the wars America has fought in my lifetime. We have battled for decades in the costliest and deadliest of ways, and the drugs have won in the war on drugs. Drugs won.”
“If Trump reschedules marijuana, he can finally say, ‘we’re focusing on the real killers now and I fixed this ridiculous policy the swamp ignored for half a century.’ Plus, imagine the trolling value,” Gaetz said. “Every blue state governor who’s been preaching legalization for years but never actually fixing anything. Trump can suddenly get it done. At CNN, heads will explode. Rachel Maddow will be so triggered not even the stickiest indica could calm her. The New York Times will run an op-ed titled ‘Is Trump doing this just to win?’ And the answer will, of course, be yes—and that’s because it is the right thing to do.”
“The only real argument against it is, ‘Well, we’ve always done it this way.’ And if we stuck to that logic, we’d still be using rotary phones and thinking that margarine is health food. So here’s my pitch: President Trump, reschedule marijuana. Do it big, do it loud. Sign the order with a gold Sharpie, hold it up for the cameras and say, ‘this plant was treated more unfairly than I was.’ And that’s saying something. It’s good politics, it’s good economics, and it’s about time the federal government stopped pretending that Snoop Dogg and El Chapo are in the same business. And if anyone is still clutching their pearls, hand them a CBD gummy.”
Gaetz’s latest comments come months after he predicted that “meaningful” marijuana reform is “on the horizon” under the current administration, praising the president’s “leadership” in supporting rescheduling.
Advocates and stakeholders were generally encouraged when Trump picked Gaetz to lead the Justice Department following his election, even if the pick was controversial for unrelated reasons. Having an attorney general who proactively championed reform would have represented a major shift, and many felt it would have boded well for seeing through the rescheduling process.
Since then, however, Trump picked former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi to run DOJ, and the Senate confirmed that choice. During her confirmation hearings, Bondi declined to say how she planned to navigate key marijuana policy issues. And as state attorney general, she opposed efforts to legalize medical cannabis.
Meanwhile, following the president’s announcement about his intention to make a decision of cannabis rescheduling within weeks, bipartisan congressional lawmakers are urging Trump to get the job done.
Separately, a new political committee that shares the same treasurer as Trump’s own super PAC is pushing the president to follow through on rescheduling marijuana, releasing an ad that highlights his previous endorsement of the reform on the campaign trail.
The treasurer of the PAC, Charles Gantt, is the same person named as treasurer of Trump’s political committee, MAGA Inc., which recently reported receiving $1 million from a marijuana industry PAC that’s supported by multiple major cannabis companies.
That committee, the American Rights and Reform PAC, separately released ads in May that attacked former President Joe Biden’s marijuana policy record in an apparent attempt to push Trump to go further on the issue.
Separately, a post that recently circulated on social media appears to show that MAGA Inc., which is also referred to as also called Make America Great Again Inc., itself created an ad that touts Trump’s support for “commonsense reform” such as removing cannabis from Schedule I of the CSA and letting states set their own policies.
The ad ends with the narrator saying “Donald Trump for president,” however, indicating that it may have been prepared prior to the 2024 election.
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.
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.
Last 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.
Meanwhile, a strategic consulting and research firm associated with Trump—Fabrizio, Lee & Associates, LLC—conducted a survey of registered voters that showed a majority of Republicans back a variety of cannabis reforms.
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