Politics
Trump Dismisses GOP Lawmakers’ Opposition To His Marijuana Rescheduling Action, Pointing To Polling And Medical Benefits
President Donald Trump on Thursday dismissed the concerns of GOP lawmakers who oppose his freshly signed executive order to reschedule marijuana, pointing out that an overwhelming majority of Americans support the reform and that cannabis can help people—including his personal friends—who are suffering from serious health issues.
At a signing ceremony, the president issued an order directing the attorney general to “complete” the process of moving marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III in the “most expeditious manner,” while also announcing plans to make full-spectrum CBD products available to patients through their health providers that could be covered by Medicare.
After signing the order, Trump was asked about GOP opposition to the reclassification decision, which included a last-ditch push from groups of House and Senate Republicans to dissuade him from moving forward.
The president said he’d prefer to have the medical professionals in attendance at the event take that question, but emphasized that polling has found that four in five Americans are in favor of rescheduling cannabis. The reform wouldn’t legalize marijuana, but it would ease research restrictions and let marijuana businesses take federal tax deductions available to other traditional industries.
“I can only tell you that when you see polls [showing] 82 percent of the people want this” and have friends who are “really, really sick” and found relief with cannabis, the policy makes sense, Trump said.
Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), also responded to the reporter’s question about GOP lawmaker opposition, stressing that strictly prohibiting marijuana as a Schedule I drug for decades “hasn’t protected neither the adolescents nor the adults.”
“This is not legalizing it. It’s making it easier to do research,” Volkow, who has long criticized keeping cannabis in Schedule I due to research limitations, said.
Meanwhile, amid the heightened rumors that the Trump administration would be moving forward on marijuana rescheduling, multiple top congressional Democrats made the case that the reform would not go far enough—including one senator who said the move is only an attempt by the president to “gaslight” voters into thinking he legalized cannabis to boost his “pathetic” approval ratings.
Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD), one of the more vocal prohibitionists in Congress, said this week that Trump doesn’t have the authority to unilaterally reschedule marijuana via executive order. But while lawmakers could overrule any administrative move to enact the reform, it would be a “heavy lift” in the Republican-controlled Congress, he acknowledged.
