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When voters head to the polls next Tuesday, they’ll have a chance to decide between two major party presidential nominees on diametrically opposite sides of the political spectrum, with at least one key exception: They both support legalizing marijuana at some level.
[…] At a high level, there’s agreement between both tickets that people should not be arrested or jailed over simple marijuana possession.
On the campaign trail, Harris further pledged to federally legalize cannabis if elected; Trump endorsed an adult-use legalization initiative in Florida, where he’s a resident, but he’s generally maintained a states’ right position as far as federal reform is concerned.
[…] Trump’s embrace of the Florida cannabis measure – as well as federal rescheduling and marijuana industry banking access – wasn’t quite so predictable. After formalizing his bid for reelection, he largely employed aggressive anti-drug rhetoric, for example voicing support for instituting the death penalty for people who sell illegal substances.
During his time in office, he made limited comments about the issue, tentatively backing legislation to let states set their own policies but taking no administrative steps to codify that policy. In fact, his first attorney general, Jeff Sessions, rescinded Obama-era guidance that urged prosecutorial discretion in federal cannabis enforcement.
Harris wasn’t always on board with marijuana legalization, either. As California’s attorney general, she wrote the opposition argument against a legalization ballot measure, for instance. She once laughed off a reporter’s question about her stance on the issue in light of a Republican opponent backing legalization.
[…] But while they might have had different reasons guiding their individual evolutions on cannabis policy reform – with Harris putting a focus on racial disparities in marijuana criminalization and Trump suggesting that the popularity of the issue makes legalization an inevitability – they’ve now arrived on roughly similar ground.
[…] Earlier this month, Harris pledged to federally legalize marijuana, ensuring that access to cannabis is “the law of the land.”
If elected, she will “break down unjust legal barriers that hold Black men and other Americans back by legalizing marijuana nationally, working with Congress to ensure that the safe cultivation, distribution, and possession of recreational marijuana is the law of the land,” the Harris campaign said.
The nominee’s cannabis plan to “legalize marijuana at the federal level to break down unjust legal barriers that hold Black men and other Americans back” is part of what her campaign calls an “opportunity agenda” aimed at winning the votes of African-American men in particular.
[…] But it wasn’t always the case that Harris championed such drug policy reforms.
During an attempt to legalize marijuana in California through a 2010 initiative that appeared on the same ballot as Harris’s candidacy for state attorney general, she called the measure a “flawed public policy.”
She also co-authored an argument against the measure that appeared in the state’s official ballot guide, stating that legalization “seriously compromises the safety of our communities, roadways, and workplaces.”
Four years after losing his reelection bid to Biden – and months before Election Day 2024 – Trump voiced support for federal marijuana rescheduling and industry banking access, while pledging to vote in favor of a Florida marijuana legalization ballot initiative.
Trump has predicted that Florida voters will approve the legalization initiative, arguing that “someone should not be a criminal in Florida, when this is legal in so many other States.
“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 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 and 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.”
“In Florida, like so many other states that have already given their approval, personal amounts of marijuana will be legalized for adults with Amendment three,” he said. “Whether people like it or not, this will happen through the approval of the Voters, so it should be done correctly.”
He also said that medical marijuana has been “absolutely amazing” for patients, and that a Florida legalization initiative for recreational use is “going to be very good” for the state after it passes.
[…] In a speech announcing his candidacy, Trump had initially signaled that drug policy would be a focal point of his campaign – but not by advocating for reform. He talked about waging “war on the cartels” and working with Congress to pass legislation to impose the death penalty on “drug dealers” who are “responsible for death, carnage and crime.”
[…] He reiterated his support for a states’ rights approach to marijuana in August 2019, saying it’s “a very big subject and right now we are allowing states to make that decision. A lot of states are making that decision, but we’re allowing states to make that decision.”
Despite his pledged support for states’ rights to legalize, Trump evidently holds some negative views toward cannabis consumption, as evidenced in a recording from 2018 that was leaked two years later. In that recording, he said that using marijuana makes people “lose IQ points.”
The former president has also pledged to commute the sentence of dark web drug market Silk Road operator Ross Ulbricht if elected in November – despite his overall position that people who sell illegal drugs should face the death penalty.
[…] Also, while it might come as a surprise, 30 years ago Trump argued in favor of legalizing all drugs.
Here comes the kicker.
“We’re losing badly the war on drugs. You have to legalize drugs to win that war. You have to take the profit away from these drug czars,” he said. “What I’d like to do maybe by bringing it up is cause enough controversy that you get into a dialogue on the issue of drugs so people will start to realize that this is the only answer; there is no other answer.”
I don’t recall Harris every saying something like that.
And, despite it being over 30 years ago, I don’t recall Trump ever saying something since to contradict what he said back then.
So on one side you have a candidate who is for cannabis law reform ’cos “racism”, although a cynic could be forgiven thinking she’s just after the black vote. It also begs the question, if blacks were being given a fair shake under the current law, would Harris still be in favour of law reform?
On the other you have a candidate who’s for cannabis law reform because it makes sense. Not only that, there’s good reason to believe he’s for the legalisation of all drugs and putting to an end the War on Drugs.
But there’s something else that needs to be mentioned. It’s no secret that Elon Musk is a user of recreational drugs such as not only cannabis but ketamine, psilocybin, MDMA (Ecstasy), and LSD. And, unlike Bill Clinton, he hasn’t tried to excuse his drug use. With the exception of Joe Rogan, if there’s anyone in the public eye who supports the use of psychedelics, it’s Musk.
Which brings me to this. It’s simply not tenable to have someone like Musk as part of the Trump administration and keep drugs like ketamine, psilocybin and MDMA illegal under US law, especially as psilocybin and MDMA are both schedule one substances. And let’s not forget LSD which is also a schedule one drug.
If Trump didn’t believe in ending the War on Drugs, he wouldn’t even consider having Musk on his team.
