Politics
Newly Elected To Senate, Talarico Plans To Work With Trump On Federally Legalizing Marijuana
After becoming the first Democrat elected to the U.S. Senate from Texas in decades, James Talarico plans to work with President Donald Trump on federally legalizing marijuana—saying that cannabis use is “a crime that doesn’t hurt anybody.”
Asked last month what he could realistically accomplish as a senator while a Republican is president, Talarico acknowledged that “with Donald Trump in the Oval Office, we’re going to have to find areas where we can work together.”
After discussing housing issues, the then-candidate zeroed in on criminal justice reform, saying he was “a fan of” Trump’s work on the issue during his first term in office when he enacted legislation to aid reentry into society for incarcerated people.
“He’s for legalizing marijuana, and so am I,” Talarico said of the president. “I hope we can do that together and expunge the records of people who have been locked up for a crime that doesn’t hurt anybody.”
“Those are some areas I think we could work together with the president,” he said.
While Trump’s administration isn’t pushing broad federal marijuana legalization at this point, it is taking steps on the more modest reform of rescheduling cannabis under the Controlled Substances Act to acknowledge its medical uses.
Trump himself did endorse a state-level marijuana legalization initiative that appeared on Florida’s ballot in 2024, While the measure fell short of the 60 percent threshold needed to enact a constitutional amendment in the state, it did get majority support.
Earlier last month, Talarico said he would work to federally legalize marijuana if he wins the Senate race.
“Like prohibition, bans don’t work,” Talarico, who currently serves as a state representative, said. “Texans aren’t going to stop smoking weed because politicians in Austin or D.C. told them not to. People will still use THC, but instead of getting it safely from regulated, local small businesses, they’ll get it from the black market, from the drug cartels.
“In the Senate, I’ll support legalizing marijuana for adults—regulating and imposing taxes on its sales to support public safety and health programs,” he said.
Talarico’s now-defeated Republican opponent for the Senate seat, Ken Paxton, meanwhile, has filed lawsuits to block several Texas cities from implementing local voter-approved laws to decriminalize marijuana in his capacity as state attorney general. His office has also defended state hemp THC product restrictions from litigation.
In an interview with The Breakfast Club in August, Talarico candidate said that keeping marijuana illegal while also moving to restrict hemp THC products is an “insane” form of “corruption.”
“Think about what industries are most worried about THC products being readily available: Big Beer, Big Tobacco, right? And so they were the ones pushing this THC ban because it hurts their bottom line,” he said. “And a lot of research shows that THC—cannabis—these products are safer and less addictive than than beer or tobacco.”
“And so to me, this is a prime example of what corruption looks like when you’ve got big industries buying politicians and pushing bills that harm people, but benefit them financially,” Talarico said.
He has also suggested that Paxton supports banning cannabis in order to aid his political donors in the alcohol and tobacco industries.
“People are outraged across the state, and it’s not any one political party,” Talarico said of recently enacted state restrictions on hemp products in an interview with KTSM-TV. “It’s people across the spectrum.”
“It doesn’t make any sense until you follow the money and realize that it is big beer and big tobacco that are funding the politicians, like Ken Paxton, who turned around and banned these safe THC products in order to enrich the big beer and a big tobacco lobby,” Talarico said.
While Talarico’s suggestion that Paxton’s actions were undertaken to support any specific business can’t be verified, campaign finance records reviewed by Marijuana Moment show that Paxton has accepted more than $500,000 in political donations from the alcohol industry while using the power of his office to crack down on cannabis.
Meanwhile, voters in Houston on Tuesday approved an initiative to make misdemeanor marijuana possession the “lowest possible enforcement priority” for local police on the November ballot.
Image element courtesy of Antonioaesparza.
