Ever since President Donald Trump was elected, cannabis advocates, law enforcement, state legislatures and governor’s mansions have all been wondering what he would do about state laws legalizing medical marijuana and recreational marijuana.
On the one hand, as a Republican, he is a law-and-order candidate. Marijuana is illegal under federal law and is in the most restrictive category for controlled substances: no safe or medically recognized uses. Trump has famously spoken of enforcing immigration laws although some industries, such as the agricultural, are dependent on foreign labor, much of it undocumented.
On the other hand, as a Republican, Trump believes in state’s rights and disapproves of the federal government interfering in how states run themselves. Every state that has legalized marijuana, medical or recreational, did so by a vote of the people or the elected government. And during the campaign, Trump said he was inclined to let the states make the decisions on marijuana within their borders.
Then Trump appointed Jeff Sessions his attorney general, a man who sees marijuana as part of the drug epidemic, maybe a little less harmful than opioid prescription pills abuse, and the cause of violent crime. His Task Force on Crime Reduction and Public Safety is expected to release their findings on the subject by today. If they agree with Sessions, they will be going against the findings of many respected studies.
While marijuana may be harmful or potentially harmful to developing brains – and can be psychologically if not physically addicting, requiring substance use disorder treatment – it also has been found to have real benefits. States where marijuana is legal not only have less drug related violence, they have fewer opioid overdoses and deaths. Marijuana can help with chronic pain and maybe opioid and prescription pills addiction, both indirectly (an alternative to opioids) and directly (help wean people from opioids).
If that’s true – scientific research is difficult because of marijuana’s placement in Schedule 1 of the Controlled Substances Act – then a crackdown on cannabis will lead to more drug violence, drug deaths and higher drug prevention costs. It could put people who were operating legally within their state’s laws in jail, all in an effort to curtail a drug that has never had one documented incident of death by overdose.
We don’t know what will happen yet. Congress is likely to re-authorize the Rohrabacher–Farr/ Rohrabacher–Blumenauer amendment – that prohibits the Justice Department from spending funds to interfere with the implementation of state medical marijuana laws – although Sessions sent a letter to the majority and minority leaders in the House and Senate requesting they not do that. Trump also included a signing statement that made his position on honoring the amendment ambiguous.
But the amendment has bipartisan support, starting with Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., who adds that politicians who support states’ rights in all other situations except marijuana may have some explaining to do. And most of the Congress is up for re-election next year.
