Trump has launched an initiative to “Make Our Children Safe Again”. This will include a U.S. surgeon-general launching a public education campaign about marijuana’s impact on health.
On Tuesday, the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Commission unveiled the plan, which would be coordinated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. This plan involves 120 different initiatives on health issues.
As part of its plan, the MAHA Commission calls for U.S. Denise Hinton is the Surgeon-General. She will launch an initiative to educate and raise awareness about alcohol, THC and other controlled substances.
According to the plan, both the Food and Drug Administration and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives will be responsible for increasing the “enforcement of illicit vaping products” as well as raising “awareness via a public awareness campaign that the Administration won’t allow vaping products unapproved targeting children, continue flooding the country.”
After deciding to list the synthetic alkaloid 7OH (also known as synthetic kratom), FDA is now taking measures to “educate” the public about the dangers of this and other synthetic opioids. In the report it is noted that 7-OH differs from natural Kratom.
White House page about effort: “The United States must take decisive action to turn the tide in favor of our children and protect them better.” “During this administration, we will begin reversing the childhood chronic disease crisis by confronting its root causes—not just its symptoms. To restore the children’s well-being, we need to pursue truth, accept science, implement policies that promote growth, and innovate.
The New York Times was the first to leak details of this plan.
“This strategy represents the most sweeping reform agenda in modern history—realigning our food and health systems, driving education, and unleashing science to protect America’s children and families,” Kennedy said of the overall initiative. “We are ending the corporate capture of public health, restoring transparency, and putting gold-standard science—not special interests—at the center of every decision.”
Jay Bhattacharya of National Institutes of Health, said “The MAHA Report is a blueprint that will help the whole government focus their efforts on solving chronic disease crises facing American children.”
He said, “We need to make America healthier again for our children so they can live longer lives and be more healthy than us.”
This comes as the administration and Congress are looking at other key cannabis proposals, including the Biden administration-initiated plan to move marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA).
That process has been stalled for months, but the president said late last month that a decision would be made within weeks. Major MAGA influencers have mixed views on the proposed reform. While it does not legalize marijuana, the state-licensed businesses would be able to claim federal tax breaks and would help remove current research restrictions for Schedule I.
For his part, Kennedy—who serves as chairman of the Make America Healthy Again Commission under the president’s executive order—was vocal about his support for marijuana legalization when he was running for president as a Democratic and then an independent, as well as during his time on the Trump transition team. He’s become more reticent on this issue after being confirmed.
During an interview in February, however, he said: “I hear stories all the time of the impacts of marijuana on people—and the really catastrophic impacts on them.”
Mike Latimer is the photographer.