Although it may sound too good to be true, the word on the street is that President Trump plans to cook up some level of federal marijuana reform following the midterm election. Just how deep could it go? According to U.S. Representative Dana Rohrabacher, the push to end some part of the country’s prohibition standard will most likely begin with the legalization of medical marijuana.
The House lawmaker recently told Fox News that the Trump Administration has made a “solid commitment” to bring such a plan to fruition. But it doesn’t sound like Rohrabacher received this tip from the president himself. He told the news source on Thursday that “I have been talking to people inside the White House who know and inside the president’s entourage… I have talked to them at length. I have been reassured that the president intends on keeping his campaign promise.”
What exactly was that promise?
During his campaign, Trump indicated that he supports medical marijuana “100 percent” and that all of this marijuana legalization business happening across the country should be left up to the states. The President vowed not to interfere with statewide reform, but he has never publicly indicated a desire to legalize marijuana for therapeutic use. Still, Rohrabacher insists that Trump has an itch to bring medical marijuana out of the underground. “I would expect after the election we will sit down and we’ll start hammering out something that is specific and real,” he said.
Earlier this year, President Trump gave some indication that he would support a bill (STATES Act) designed to give states the freedom to legalize marijuana without any threat of federal interference. He told a group of reporters that he would “probably” support the measure in ink if it crossed his desk. But so far, the STATES Act is still lingering in political purgatory. It only has 10 co-sponsors and has not yet been brought up for discussion. It is conceivable that the bill will be ignored.
Whether or not the comments coming from the California Congressman hold any weight remains to be seen. Whether his words can be trusted to paint an accurate portrait of the White House’s plan for pot is also a question.
Rohrabacher, who is up for reelection this year, has a bit of a checkered reputation on Capitol Hill. Back in the day, the lawmaker went up against scientific evidence showing that global warming was a man-made problem. Rohrabacher believes that “dinosaur flatulence” is more likely the cause. But wait, it gets better. He once dressed in drag in hopes of uncovering the real culprit behind the assassination of Robert Kennedy, and pulled similar shenanigans to interrogate Oklahoma City bombing co-conspirator, Terry Nichols. He did this, according to reports, because he was convinced the attacks were made by muslims and not a couple of red-blooded, white Americans.
Still, Rohrabacher and all of his craziness says federal marijuana reform is on the horizon. “It could be as early as spring of 2019, but definitely in the next legislative session,” he said.
