After President Donald Trump announced a decision imminent on Monday, the MAGA community is split on its position on whether it supports a federal rescheduling of marijuana.
Despite the fact that polls show bipartisan support in favor of the rescheduling of cannabis, and the end of prohibition as a whole, the Trump supporters who are most vocal against this reform.
This includes Matt Walsh of The Daily Wire, who wrote on social media that “no pothead country has ever prospered or achieved anything.” Each city which legalized marijuana became a worse shithole overnight.
He said that the history of Western civilization shows that marijuana was far more harmful to society than cigarettes or whiskey. “Our society flourished” when people smoked and drank whisky.
Alex Bruesewitz, a Trump adviser, has recently made several posts praising the benefits of rescheduling, such as one where he agreed with Joe Rogan, a podcaster, on the “absurdity’ of marijuana’s current classification.
“Schedule 3 keeps marijuana as a criminal offense, but allows for medical research.” Bruesewitz’ political consulting company X Strategies, which received $300,000.00 from a marijuana-funded political group for media this year as part of its “media” campaign, supports the idea.
To be sure, the Biden administration-initiated proposal to move marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) wouldn’t legalize cannabis. The move would allow cannabis businesses to benefit from tax credits and write-offs available for other industries and lower barriers to research.
While Trump endorsed moving marijuana to Schedule III during last year’s presidential campaign—along with cannabis industry banking access and a Florida legalization ballot initiative that ultimately fell short—this week he merely said he is considering the issue, with a decision expected within weeks.
Among certain MAGA-influenced individuals, it still appears that there is some confusion between descheduling (or legalization) and rescheduling.
Jack Posobiec for instance, stated on Monday “America, and especially our children, deserve better. And I certainly don’t wish to smell marijuana every time my kids go to a city park, or anywhere else.” This was reported by Axios.
In an X-post, he addressed the criticisms that he had confused rescheduling with legalization. He said that those who made the distinction were “ignorant of the way the bait and swap always happens to this stuff.”
“It went from ‘just medicinal’ to being everywhere in less than 5 years. He said, “You cannot even visit parks any more.”
Reclassifying marijuana would be a huge corporate gift to Big Leaf. Posobiec wrote in an earlier post that tax deductions will be a huge part of the marijuana industry’s growth. Within five years, it will reach $50 billion. This is why the cannabis industry lobbyists are so active in supporting rescheduling.
Trump is not the only one who sees the potential for political gain by Trump by taking advantage of the growing popularity of marijuana reform.
Roger Stone told MEDCAN24 that he supported descheduling completely along with some sensible regulation. However, he said reclassifying cannabis from Schedule 1 to Schedule 3 was a positive step. It would also help address the issue of banking for the companies who legally sell medicinal marijuana.
Joe Biden, Barack Obama, and the rest of their team could have made a difference but didn’t. He said that Trump had always seen cannabis as a state’s rights issue. It’s important that cannabis policies are aligned to state laws, while also avoiding the overregulation of hemp industries created by President Trump in his Farm Bill during his first term.
Charlie Kirk said, “I hope it doesn’t happen.”
He stated, “We should protect the public spaces of children.” It’s ridiculous that everything smells like weed. Make it more difficult to destroy public places, not simpler.
Rogan O’Handley, a MAGA-influenced influencer, clarified that the reclassification of cannabis does not “legalize” it but allows for greater medical research.
O’Handley, who uses the handle @DC_Draino on X, said in an article that big pharmaceuticals, prisons, and alcohol companies were opposed to reform. This is contrary to veterans of military service, who are using cannabis to benefit their health.
CJ Pearson, another person in the president’s orbit, said Trump’s “openness to rescheduling is research driven and shows he’s listening to the countless veterans whose lives have been changed for the better by its medicinal benefits.”
Mike Cernovich — a MAGA icon who had disavowed last year his support of legalizing marijuana — has written a series since Trump’s announcement of the new schedule. In these posts, Cernovich argues for reform and links it to illegal grow operations.
Gunther Eagleman – a MAGA influencer – he too embraced Gunther’s push to reschedule.
He wrote that this legislation would “enable vital research for veterans” in his Tuesday article.
If we want our vets to be able to live a better life, then marijuana MUST be rescheduled! He said.
Bruce LeVell was a senior adviser to Trump in all three of his presidential campaigns. Bruce has expressed his support for reforms and the end of prohibition.
As long as the federal ban on marijuana remains in place, cartels are able to earn billions while U.S. taxpayers lose out on tax revenues and the creation of jobs. We can legalize, regulate, and create thousands of jobs that pay well, boost the local economy, and provide people with safe and legal options.
Juanita Barrowdrick of MAGA, who is a strong advocate for the marijuana reform movement, responded to Kirk’s opposition by stating that simply rescheduling it “does not legalize” cannabis.
It won’t matter. Trump’s effort to change the date is something I fully support. She said, “I agree with you that smoking should be prohibited in public areas.
Trump’s press conference from earlier in the week didn’t make any clear indications about how he will address this issue. Trump’s latest remarks are more ambiguous than the direct support he gave to rescheduling when he ran for his second term.
However, the mixed responses of his MAGA base suggest that even some key figures will end up disappointed no matter how he decides on rescheduling.
One Republican and one Democrat congressman, both of whom urged Trump in the recent past to change marijuana’s federal classification after Trump had announced that it would be made within a few weeks, reflected this bipartisanship.
The same super-PAC that Trump has created, as well as a new committee with the exact same funder, is pushing Trump to reschedule marijuana. They have released an advertisement that highlights Trump’s previous support for the reform during the election campaign.
The treasurer of the PAC, Charles Gantt, is the same person named as treasurer of Trump’s political committee, MAGA Inc., which recently reported receiving $1 million from a marijuana industry PAC that’s supported by multiple major cannabis companies.
That committee, the American Rights and Reform PAC, separately released ads in May that attacked former President Joe Biden’s marijuana policy record in an apparent attempt to push Trump to go further on the issue.
A post recently shared on social media shows that MAGA Inc. (also known as Make America Great Again Inc.) created its own ad touting Trump’s support of “commonsense” reforms such as removing marijuana from Schedule I under the Controlled Substances Act and allowing states to set their policies.
It is possible that the advertisement was prepared before the election of 2024.
The owner of the major gardening supply company Scotts Miracle-Gro recently said Trump has told him directly “multiple times” since taking office that he intends to see through the marijuana rescheduling process.
Trump’s former acting head of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) also recently predicted that the administration will soon “dig in” to the state-federal marijuana policy conflict, emphasizing the need to “eliminate confusion, not create it” amid the rescheduling push.
Meanwhile, Terrence Cole, who was sworn in last month as the new administrator of the DEA, declined to include rescheduling on a list of “strategic priorities” the agency that instead focused on anti-trafficking enforcement, Mexican cartels, the fentanyl supply chain, drug-fueled violence, cryptocurrency, the dark web and a host of other matters.
That’s despite the fact that Cole said during a confirmation hearing in April that examining the government’s pending marijuana rescheduling proposal would be “one of my first priorities” after taking office.
Last week, former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer predicted that Trump would not legalize marijuana, though that is a separate issue from the current rescheduling proposal under consideration.
Former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), who Trump initially nominated to serve as U.S. attorney general during the current term, has also renewed his call for cannabis rescheduling—saying the “game is over for Democrats at the ballot box” if the president moves forward on the reform.
Meanwhile, a strategic consulting and research firm associated with Trump—Fabrizio, Lee & Associates, LLC—conducted a survey of registered voters that showed a majority of Republicans back a variety of cannabis reforms.
The Republican Governor of Indiana said that if Trump moved forward with federally reclassifying marijuana, this national reform would add “a bit of fuel” to local efforts for legalizing cannabis in his state.