Prez seemingly backs bill on pot
Joins Baker, Warren in supporting states’ rights
Add a notch to the slim column of policy agreements between President Trump and Gov. Charlie Baker as both yesterday threw their support behind a states’ rights marijuana proposal that promises to clear away the dark cloud of federal prohibitions from the burgeoning industry.
Trump, speaking to reporters on the South Lawn of the White House, said he’d likely support the work of Bay State U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren and U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner, a Colorado Republican, to let states determine how to regulate marijuana within their borders.
The bill eases the federal scrutiny for marijuana and industrial hemp under the Controlled Substances Act, maintains a ban on the sale of marijuana to people under 21 and establishes that compliant financial transactions are not illegal trafficking — a move to let marijuana companies access the banking system without fear of breaking federal law.
“I know exactly what he’s doing,” Trump said of Gardner and Warren’s, bill. “We’re looking at it. But I will probably end up supporting that, yes.”
Baker backed the bill in a letter with governors from California, Alaska, Colorado, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Nevada, North Dakota, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Washington. The letter stresses that the “will of the people as expressed through ballot initiatives and legislative action” has led to 46 states with medical marijuana and nine states with adult use of the drug.
The letter laments the Trump administration’s pulling a 2013 Department of Justice memo that pushed federal drug enforcement away from operations that were compliant with state laws.
“The rescission of the Cole Memo earlier this year has complicated the marketplace for businesses that states now deem legal,” the letter reads. “This return to one-size-fits-all federal prohibition is incongruent with reality, undermines the 46 carefully-crafted regulatory structures and impedes states’ abilities to be effective laboratories of democracy.”
Warren, announcing the legislation this week, said the federal prohibitions have “perpetuated a broken criminal justice system, created barriers to research, and hindered economic development.” She said states have the right to enforce their own marijuana policies and the federal government should “get out of the business of outlawing marijuana.”
Trump’s nod of approval for the bill puts him again at odds with Attorney General Jeff Sessions — whose public comments and decision to rescind the Cole Memo put him squarely at odds with the states’ rights argument for marijuana regulation.
“I reject the idea that America will be a better place if marijuana is sold in every corner store,” Sessions said in a speech last
‘We’re looking at it. But I will probably end up supporting that, yes.’ — PRESIDENT TRUMP, on bill supporting states’ rights on marijuana
year. “I am astonished to hear people suggest that we can solve our heroin crisis by legalizing marijuana — so people can trade one life-wrecking dependency for another that’s only slightly less awful. Our nation needs to say clearly once again that using drugs will destroy your life.”