Jean-Pierre was talking to author and professor Wendy Osefo, host of The Dr. Wendy Show, who recently visited the White House. In part of the interview, Osefo said that her husband started his own cannabis company.

“Now that cannabis is becoming legal in some states,” she asked, “is there a conversation within this administration to expunge cannabis-related convictions.”

Jean-Pierre replied that Biden “has expunged on the federal level, been able to get that done.”

In fact, the Biden administration has not expunged federal cannabis-related criminal convictions—something the president himself finally acknowledged this past May after repeatedly claiming the opposite.

Biden has repeatedly touted the mass cannabis pardons he granted, signaling the campaign’s understanding of the popularity of marijuana reform. But in the past, he’s falsely suggested that the pardons did expunge records—making the claim during his State of the Union address this year, for example.

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The distinction between pardons and expungements was flagged by the Congressional Research Service in 2022, in a report that said that a “pardon may not remove all legal consequences of marijuana possession, because it does not expunge convictions.”

Jean-Pierre’s response in the new interview similarly overlooks that crucial distinction.

In any case, the press secretary then pivoted to rescheduling.

“We are looking at rescheduling, right?” Jean-Pierre said. “There’s something that is happening and that is moving forward, but that is something the president is very serious about, OK?”

She also repeated the administration’s refrain that “people should not be in prison for the use of marijuana only.”

“It was part of his campaign in 2020 and he’s already taken action on that,” she said, without acknowledging that no one has been released from incarceration as a result of Biden’s pardons.

Jean-Pierre then appeared to try to downplay the seriousness of marijuana compared to substances typically seen as harder drugs.

“It is not— Cocaine is not marijuana,” she said. “It is just not the same.”

New episode of The Dr. Wendy Show is now LIVE!! I get to sit down with @K_JeanPierre & discuss everything from the #BidenHarris policy for Black America to Cannabis Reform (shoutout @HappyEddie__) click link below to watch #RHOP https://t.co/FWhUFNEWBp pic.twitter.com/CR8ggMc9ut

— Dr. Wendy Osefo (@WendyOsefo) October 14, 2024

Following the somewhat scattershot response, Osefo noted that historical enforcement of cannabis prohibition has fallen disproportionately on communities of color, especially Black and brown people.

“And he’s said that,” Jean-Pierre jumped in. “We’ve actually said it affects disproportionately Black and brown communities, and we need to take a look at that.”

Biden’s pardons of people with federal marijuana possession records represent formal forgiveness from the government. The Justice Department has been distributing certificates to eligible people who apply for the largely symbolic documents, but the move doesn’t seal court records.

In correspondence to recipients, the pardon attorney’s office said the certificate “is proof that you were pardoned under the proclamation.”

“The pardon means that you’re forgiven, but you still have a criminal record,” it clarifies.

And while Biden might have since adjusted his rhetoric to reflect the realities of the clemency action, he hasn’t indicated that he’s willing to offer relief for offenses beyond simple possession. In fact, he’s specifically said that growing or distributing cannabis is “a different deal.”

On that issue, there are still people in federal prison over non-violent marijuana offenses. Advocates have pushed the Biden administration to take further action, including keeping his key cannabis campaign pledge to decriminalize marijuana.

On Monday, Vice President Kamala Harris pledged to federally legalize marijuana, ensuring that access to cannabis is “the law of the land.”

If elected, she will “break down unjust legal barriers that hold Black men and other Americans back by legalizing marijuana nationally, working with Congress to ensure that the safe cultivation, distribution, and possession of recreational marijuana is the law of the land,” the Harris campaign said.

The Democratic presidential nominee’s cannabis plan to “legalize marijuana at the federal level to break down unjust legal barriers that hold Black men and other Americans back” is part of what her campaign calls an “opportunity agenda” aimed at winning the votes of African-American men in particular.

To that end, the campaign says Harris will “fight to ensure that as the national cannabis industry takes shape, Black men—who have, for years, been overpoliced for marijuana use—are able to access wealth and jobs in this new market.”

In contrast, the VP’s new plan says that former President Donald Trump’s administration “threatened federal prosecutions for marijuana in states where marijuana use is legal, continuing the unjust and disproportionate use of marijuana possession laws to put Black Americans behind bars.”

That appears to be a reference to his first attorney general’s removal of Obama-era enforcement guidance that generally directed prosecutors to respect state cannabis laws. There was no large scale crackdown on state-legal marijuana businesses in the wake of that move, however.

Last month, Harris made clear she still supports legalizing cannabis, which she previously pushed for as a senator but had not publicly discussed since becoming President Joe Biden’s running mate in 2020.

Also last month, Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz said he thinks marijuana legalization is an issue that should be left to individual states, adding that electing more Democrats to Congress could also make it easier to pass federal reforms like cannabis banking protections.

Meanwhile former President Donald Trump (R) said recently during his campaign for a second term that he now supports federal marijuana rescheduling and marijuana banking access.

“As President, we will continue to focus on research to unlock the medical uses of marijuana to a Schedule 3 drug, and work with Congress to pass common sense laws, including safe banking for state authorized companies, and supporting states rights to pass marijuana laws, like in Florida, that work so well for their citizens,” Trump posted to social media last month.

Trump also recently discussed the medical benefits of cannabis and said legalization would be “very good” for Florida, which will consider the reform at the ballot box in November’s election.

The Harris–Walz campaign, however, has accused Trump of lying about his support for marijuana reform—arguing that his “blatant pandering” runs counter to his administration’s record on cannabis.

Following Trump’s recent announcement of support for the Florida cannabis legalization ballot measure, the Democratic campaign has been working to remind voters that while in office, Trump “took marijuana reform backwards.”

The posturing by the presidential candidates comes amid an ongoing process of moving marijuana to the less-restrictive Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA).

The Department of Health and Humans Services (HHS) this spring recommended moving the drug to Schedule III, but the action has faced resistance from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), which has scheduled a hearing on the proposal for December 2—after the presidential election, raising concerns that the process will not be completed until after a new president is inaugurated.

As president, Trump largely stayed true to his position that marijuana laws should be handled at the state-level, with no major crackdown on cannabis programs as some feared after then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions rescinded the Obama era federal enforcement guidance. In fact, Trump criticized the top DOJ official and suggested the move should be reversed.

While he was largely silent on the issue of legalization, he did tentatively endorse a bipartisan bill to codify federal policy respecting states’ rights to legalize.

That said, on several occasions he released signing statements on spending legislation stipulating that he reserved the right to ignore a long-standing rider that prohibits the Justice Department from using its funds to interfere with state-legal medical marijuana programs.

Group That’s Been Backed By Elon Musk Donates $500,000 To Anti-Marijuana Legalization Effort In Florida

“In the U.S. adult population, current cannabis use is significantly associated with higher prevalence of physical activity,” the new paper, published this month in the Journal of Cannabis Research, concludes. “The prevalence of physical activity is significantly greater in U.S. states and territories where cannabis is legalized for recreational and medical purposes (vs. not legal).”

The study, from researchers at Brigham Young University’s public health department, analyzed the association between cannabis use and physical activity in adults 18 and older in the U.S. from 2016 to 2022. Authors used data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Behavior Risk Factor Surveillance System, which consists of national telephone surveys about “health-related risks behaviors, chronic health conditions, and use of preventive services,” the report explains.

“There appears to be some benefits associated with cannabis use for those with chronic medical conditions that allow them to be more physically active, possibly because cannabis helps control pain and inflammation.”

Notably, while self-reported physical activity was higher in cannabis users, that difference was only significant in jurisdictions where marijuana is legal in some form, whether for adult or medical use.

“The association between current cannabis use and physical activity is not significant in areas where cannabis is illegal,” the study says, “but significantly positive in areas where it is legal, more so for legal recreational cannabis.”

“As cannabis becomes increasingly accessible through legalization, there is greater potential for people to use it to influence their physical activity.”

Authors note that when respondents were asked about their primary reasons for using marijuana, physical activity wasn’t generally associated with medical cannabis use, though it was for recreational consumption.

“Where cannabis was used to improve the physical activity experience, it may be to improve their focus and enjoyment, or to enhance the mind-body-spirit connection and improve recovery by improving sleep quality and lowering pain,” the study says.  Authors added that while medical marijuana users didn’t identify physical activity as a chief reason for cannabis use, “lower physical activity among those people with chronic medical conditions may be ameliorated in some cases by cannabis use.”

Commenting on the findings, NORML Deputy Director Paul Armentano emphasized that the findings run counter to what many people still assume about people who use marijuana.

“These conclusions contradict longstanding stereotypes alleging that cannabis consumers are lazy or apathetic,” he said in a blog post. “It’s unfortunate that many of these false claims have historically guided public health messaging about cannabis and have also been used to stigmatize and discriminate against those who consume it responsibly.”

Authors note that their findings are consistent with some studies, but not all, into the association with between cannabis and physical activity.

“Legalization of cannabis directly corresponded to greater physical activity, especially with legalized recreational cannabis.”

Earlier this year, for example, similar research using data from Canada found that young to midlife adults were neither more sedentary nor more intensely active after consuming cannabis—though recent use was associated with a “marginal increase” in light exercise.

“Our findings provide evidence against existing concerns that cannabis use independently promotes sedentary behavior and decreases physical activity,” those researchers wrote, adding that “the stereotypical ‘lazy stoner’ archetype historically portrayed with chronic cannabis use does not acknowledge the diverse uses of cannabis today.”

The report, published in the journal Cannabis and Cannabinoid Research, drew on data from Canada’s National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), which, during its 2011–2012 and 2013–2014 cycles, included information from wrist-worn accelerometers that tracked participants’ physical activity. Participants, who were all between ages 18 and 59, also answered a Drug Use Questionnaire that asked about current and lifetime use of substances such as cannabis, cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine.

Another report, from February, found that people who use marijuana take more walks on average compared to non-users and e-cigarette users. The study, published in the journal Preventive Medicine Reports late last month, also found that marijuana consumers are no less likely to engage in basic exercise and strength training compared to non-users.

In another stereotype-busting study that was published in 2021, researchers found that frequent marijuana consumers are actually more likely to be physically active compared to their non-using counterparts.

A separate 2019 study found that people use cannabis to elevate their workout tend to get a healthier amount of exercise. It also concluded that consuming before or after exercising improved the experience and aided in recovery.

Various other recent findings similarly challenge widely held preconceptions about cannabis users. For example, a report last month concluded that there’s no association between habitual marijuana use and paranoia or decreased motivation. The research also found no evidence that marijuana consumption causes a hangover the next day.

A 2022 study on marijuana and laziness, meanwhile, found no difference in apathy or reward-based behavior between people who used cannabis on at least a weekly basis and non-users. Frequent marijuana consumers, that study found, actually experienced more pleasure than those who abstained.

Separate research published in 2020 found that “compared to older adult nonusers, older adult cannabis users had lower [body mass index] at the beginning of an exercise intervention study, engaged in more weekly exercise days during the intervention, and were engaging in more exercise-related activities at the conclusion of the intervention.”

A report published last December, meanwhile, examined neurocognitive effects in medical marijuana patients, finding that “prescribed medical cannabis may have minimal acute impact on cognitive function among patients with chronic health conditions.”

Another report, published March in the journal Current Alzheimer Research, linked marijuana use to lower odds of subjective cognitive decline (SCD), with consumers and patients reporting less confusion and memory loss compared to non-users.

A report published in April that drew on dispensary data found that cancer patients reported being able to think more clearly when using medical marijuana. They also said it helped manage pain.

A separate study of teens and young adults at risk of developing psychotic disorders found that regular marijuana use over a two-year period did not trigger early onset of psychosis symptoms—contrary to the claims of prohibitionists who argue that cannabis causes mental illness. In fact, it was associated with modest improvements in cognitive functioning and reduced use of other medications.

“CHR youth who continuously used cannabis had higher neurocognition and social functioning over time, and decreased medication usage, relative to non-users,” authors of that study wrote. “Surprisingly, clinical symptoms improved over time despite the medication decreases.”

A separate study published by the American Medical Association (AMA) in January that looked at data from more than 63 million health insurance beneficiaries found that there’s “no statistically significant increase” in psychosis-related diagnoses in states that have legalized marijuana compared to those that continue to criminalize cannabis.

Studies from 2018, meanwhile, found that marijuana may actually increase working memory and that cannabis use doesn’t actually change the structure of the brain.

And, contrary to then-President Donald Trump’s claim that marijuana makes people “lose IQ points,” the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA) says the results of two longitudinal studies “did not support a causal relationship between marijuana use and IQ loss.”

Research has shown that people who use cannabis can see declines in verbal ability and general knowledge but that “those who would use in the future already had lower scores on these measures than those who would not use in the future, and no predictable difference was found between twins when one used marijuana and one did not.”

“This suggests that observed IQ declines, at least across adolescence, may be caused by shared familial factors (e.g., genetics, family environment), not by marijuana use itself,” NIDA concluded.

Cannabis Oil Can Help Heal Skin Wounds By Creating ‘A More Conducive Environment For Tissue Regeneration,’ Review Finds

By Michelle Minton, Reason Foundation

From afar, the marijuana industry looks like it should be thriving.

According to Gallup, marijuana consumption has more than doubled since 2013. Recreational marijuana is now legal in 24 states, medical marijuana is legal in 40 states, legalization is on four state ballots this November, the Biden administration has taken the long overdue step of rescheduling cannabis, and both major party presidential candidates, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, have signaled at least acceptance that legal marijuana is the future.

Yet, legal marijuana markets are faltering across the country, and there are numerous state-level efforts to ban hemp and CBD products.

Colorado and Massachusetts are seeing their legal marijuana dispensaries shutter, California’s cannabis industry seems on the verge of collapse, and in 2024, only about a quarter of U.S. marijuana businesses have reported turning a profit. The underlying problem is federal law and the complex web of state regulations that suffocate legal companies with high costs and inefficiencies. Sadly, many states appear poised to make the same regulatory mistakes with legalized hemp.

Marijuana and hemp, both derived from Cannabis sativa L., are chemically similar, but their regulatory paths couldn’t be more different. Marijuana has been federally prohibited since 1970. Hemp, on the other hand, was federally legalized in the 2018 Farm Bill, triggering an interstate market boom that states are now trying to stop or regulate.

Freed from federal prohibition, hemp has rapidly outpaced legal marijuana sales, rivaling even the craft beer industry in size. Hemp’s industrial uses—like textiles and building materials—are important, but it’s the cannabinoid-rich products created from hemp extract that are driving its market growth. As a result, concerned lawmakers across the country are imposing reactionary restrictions and outright bans because some of these hemp products have intoxicating effects similar to marijuana.

Cannabidiol (CBD), a non-psychoactive hemp derivative, is perhaps the most well-known hemp extract product. Widely recognized for its therapeutic benefits, CBD has become popular as a health product and an effective treatment for childhood seizure disorders. But the rise of intoxicating cannabinoids, like delta-8 THC, has triggered alarm among state lawmakers and legal marijuana businesses alike.

Delta-8 THC offers similar psychoactive effects to marijuana but, unlike marijuana, is not prohibited or controlled at the federal level. As a result, delta-8 products have flooded states, even those like Texas that have not legalized marijuana sales.

Consumers have far greater and easier access to hemp products, with products crossing state lines, available through online vendors and places like gas stations and convenience stores and sometimes even available for legal purchase by minors.

In contrast, legal marijuana sales remain tightly restricted to licensed dispensaries only in states where it is legal. Licensed marijuana businesses, overburdened by heavy regulation, are understandably frustrated by new competition from lightly regulated hemp products. Moreover, some concerns about youth access and the safety of novel hemp products are warranted. But the answer isn’t to burden hemp with equally stringent rules or outright prohibition.

Unfortunately, we’ve seen a wave of drastic measures proposed or adopted by states. Over 90 state bills were introduced to regulate hemp products this year. More recently, Missouri Gov. Mike Parson (R) ordered a state-wide ban on intoxicating hemp products. California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) introduced emergency regulations prohibiting hemp products with detectable levels of THC. New Jersey followed suit, and Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R) has urged the state’s legislature to prioritize banning delta-8 products next year.

While these policies are framed as consumer protection, they risk causing more harm than good, driving consumers toward illicit and truly unregulated products and cutting off access to therapeutic products because it is nearly impossible to extract non-intoxicating cannabinoids, like CBD, from hemp without trace levels of THC.

Instead, state lawmakers should aim for sensible regulations focused on consumer protection and transparency in both industries. Hemp cannabinoids and the products created with them are no more inherently dangerous than marijuana or marijuana products. The only difference is that while the manufacture and sales of marijuana products are held to overly stringent standards, hemp is often held to few, if any.

Rather than rushing to impose bans and restrictions on hemp that won’t help people or the economy, states should instead impose reasonable regulations on both hemp and marijuana to ensure the quality, safety and viability of both industries. As a recent Reason Foundation study detailed, states can do this by implementing manufacturing, testing, labeling standards and age restrictions for hemp while reducing unnecessarily restrictive and overly burdensome rules that stymie legal marijuana businesses.

The current piecemeal approach to regulation puts consumers at risk and hampers the ability of even willing actors to comply with a maze of state rules. Unlike legal marijuana’s unspooling mess, it’s far easier for lawmakers to get it right on hemp today. Unencumbered by federal prohibition of hemp, states can craft policies that balance consumer protection with market flexibility, coordinate with other states to standardize rules for a more coherent interstate market and foster fair and healthy competition between legal hemp and marijuana products.

The cannabis and hemp industries should be working with states to seize this chance to build a thriving, sensibly regulated hemp industry that works for consumers, businesses and regulators alike.

Michelle Minton is a senior policy analyst at Reason Foundation.

Nebraska Medical Marijuana Legalization Ballot Initiative Would Create Nearly $1 Billion In Economic Benefits By 2030, Analysis Finds

Photo courtesy of Brendan Cleak.

Among adults overall, “medical cannabis availability was not associated with self-reported poor mental health,” it adds. “Collectively, these results suggest medical cannabis availability has limited mental health effects on the population at large, with considerable mental health benefits for older adults.”

For people 65 and older, authors noted that living within 30 minutes of a dispensary “decreased the probability having a poor mental health day in the past month by about 10 percent,” which they point out was “a 3.5 percentage point decrease from an original probability of roughly 36 percent.”

“What may explain our finding that medical cannabis availability improves the self-reported mental health of people aged 65 and above? Likely pain relief,” the research brief from authors at the libertarian Cato Institute says. “Cannabis is a good treatment for chronic pain caused by nerve disease (neuropathy)—the most common justification for medical cannabis and a common chronic condition among older adults.”

The study used geographic data to” estimate medical cannabis dispensary availability’s effects on self-reported mental health in New York state from 2011 through 2021 using a two-stage difference-in-differences approach to minimize bias introduced from the staggered opening of dispensaries,” the paper says.

“Medical cannabis availability reduced past-month self-reported poor mental health days by nearly 10%—3.37 percentage points—among adults 65 and above.”

Researchers said their findings about the importance of dispensary locations should be heeded by legislators and other policymakers. “This is an important consideration for state regulators considering medical and recreational cannabis legalization,” they wrote, “and how to approach the proliferation of nondispensary businesses selling close cannabis substitutes, such as Delta 8, THCP, and THCA.”

Nevertheless, the Cato brief prominently features concerns that the broader proliferation of cannabis legalization and use is happening while science still knows too little about the effects of using marijuana.

“Our findings also suggest there is an urgent need to learn more about how cannabis use affects older adults. The federal government has heavily restricted clinical research involving cannabis for decades,” it says. “President Biden reduced many of these restrictions by signing the Medical Marijuana and Cannabidiol Research Expansion Act into law in December 2022; however, clinical evidence on the health effects of cannabis will likely remain limited for years to come.”

The Cato Institute’s research brief, posted on the organization’s website earlier this month, is based on a working paper from the same authors that was published in May by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

“Pain relief is the likely mechanism through which medical cannabis availability reduces poor mental health days among older adults.”

The two institutions frame top-level findings from the research in notably different ways, with Cato’s opening paragraph emphasizing the risks and dangers of cannabis use and the National Bureau of Economic Research emphasizing the “positive health impacts for older populations.”

Cato Institute:

Cannabis use across the United States continues to rise. Almost 40 states have enacted laws permitting medical cannabis use. Approximately 62 million Americans—which constitutes 22 percent of Americans aged 12 years and older—used cannabis in 2022, up from 11 percent in 2010. However, there is minimal published research on the effects of cannabis on mental health. It may exacerbate depression and other mood disorders; alternatively, it is promoted and consumed as a wellness product to treat these mental health conditions. Approximately 50 percent of medical cannabis consumers use it to treat anxiety, and 34 percent use it to treat depression. In addition to the sharp increases in cannabis use and contradicting evidence of its effects, a rapidly worsening mental health crisis—exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic—amplifies the need to understand how the availability of medical cannabis affects mental health.

National Bureau of Economic Research:

Evidence on cannabis legalization’s effects on mental health remains scarce, despite both rapid increases in cannabis use and an ongoing mental health crisis in the United States. We use granular geographic data to estimate medical cannabis dispensary availability’s effects on self-reported mental health in New York state from 2011 through 2021 using a two-stage difference-in-differences approach to minimize bias introduced from the staggered opening of dispensaries. Our findings rule out that medical cannabis availability had negative effects on mental health for the adult population overall. We also find that medical cannabis availability reduced past-month self-reported poor mental health days by nearly 10%—3.37 percentage points—among adults 65 and above. These results suggest medical cannabis access has positive health impacts for older populations, likely through pain relief.

To be sure, marijuana use by older adults has risen sharply, nearly doubling in over the course of the past three years, according to a recent study supported by AARP. Most 50 and older said they use cannabis to relieve pain, help with sleep, improve mental health and achieve other benefits.

More than 1 in 5 Americans aged 50 and older now say they’ve used marijuana at least once in the past year, according to the survey conducted by the University of Michigan, while more than 1 in 10 consumed cannabis at least monthly. Researchers said they expect use rates among older adults to continue to increase as more states legalize.

The new findings come after a separate study earlier this year concluded that cannabis-based products may provide multiple therapeutic benefits for older adults, including for health, well-being, sleep and mood.

Authors of that study, published in the journal Drugs and Aging, also observed “sizable reductions in pain severity and pain interference among older aged patients [reporting] chronic pain as their primary condition.”

Researchers said that investigation was meant to address “a general paucity of high quality research” around cannabis and older adults “and a common methodological practice of excluding those aged over 65 years from clinical trials” at a time when older patients are increasingly turning to medical marijuana for relief.

“International evidence that older individuals may be the fastest-growing increase in the use of medical marijuana, coupled with their frequent exclusion from controlled trials, indicates a growing need for real-world evidence to assess the effectiveness and safety of these drugs for older individuals,” the paper said.

Meanwhile, U.S. officials at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced this spring that the agency will use $8.4 million to support clinical trials into the safety and efficacy of psychedelic-assisted therapy to treat chronic pain in older adults.

A government notice about the grant program says the research can include “classic” psychedelics—including psilocybin, DMT, LSD and mescaline—as well as similar compounds such as MDMA. Cannabis and ketamine are not considered psychedelics for the purposes of the clinical trials.

A federally funded study last year found that among U.S. adults, cannabis and psychedelic use were both at “historic highs,” while teen marijuana use remained stable.

Kamala Harris Rolls Out National Marijuana Legalization Plan, Pledging To Make It ‘The Law Of The Land’

Photo courtesy of Chris Wallis // Side Pocket Images.

The campaign finance news comes as a new poll again shows majority support for the cannabis measure—but not enough to meet a 60 percent requirement to pass the constitutional amendment.

Faithful & Strong Policies, Inc., a group run by Florida-based attorney Scott Wagner, made the $500,000 contribution to Keep Florida Clean, Inc. earlier this month, campaign filings show. Keep Florida Clean, which is led by DeSantis’s chief of staff James Uthmeier, is committed to defeating Amendment 3, the cannabis legalization measure, at the ballot.

While the donation pales in comparison to the more than $100 million dollars that the pro-legalization campaign Safe & Smart Florida has taken in this election cycle—primarily from the major marijuana company Trulieve—it nonetheless adds fuel to the opposition effort at a critical time, especially as the latest NBC 6 Florida poll raises questions about the initiative’s prospects of passage.

Musk’s relationship to this newest contribution from Faithful & Strong Policies committee is unclear. But The Wall Street Journal recently reported that the Tesla and Space X leader previously gave the organization $10 million, about half of which went to a PAC supporting DeSantis’s bid for the Republican presidential nomination.

The dark-money nonprofit Elon Musk used to funnel money to Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign just gave $500,000 to a group led by DeSantis’ chief of staff that is trying to defeat Amendment 3 – the citizen-led constitutional amendment that would legalize marijuana in Florida pic.twitter.com/fb8zjYGLLk

— Jason Garcia (@Jason_Garcia) October 11, 2024

Marijuana Moment reached out to Faithful & Strong Policies’s Wager, as well as Musk, for clarification, but representatives did not respond by the time of publication.

Several recent polls have indicated that Amendment 3 has enough support from voters across the aisle to pass, but the NBC 6 survey that was released on Sunday found that 58 percent of registered voters are in favor of the reform—two percentage points shy of what’s needed to be enacted under state law.

A majority of Democrats (72 percent) and independents (54 percent) said they back the policy change. A plurality of Republicans (49 percent) said the same. The survey further shows majority support across every region of the state surveyed, as well as those both voters under and over 50 years old.

The poll involved interviews with 625 people from October 1-4, with a +/-4 percentage point margin of error.

DeSantis has been working to rally opposition to the initiative for months. And he’s more recently faced criticism—and a lawsuit against the state—over a taxpayer-funded public service announcement distributed by the Florida Department of Transportation that, at one point, claims states that enact legalization see higher rates of impaired driving.

Meanwhile, the main corporate backer of the legalization initiative, the multi-state cannabis operator Trulieve, has filed a defamation suit against the state’s Republican Party, alleging it’s knowingly deceived voters about the proposed constitutional change known as Amendment 3.

Separately, the pro-legalization campaign, Smart & Safe Florida, released an ad of its own earlier this month, highlighting the fact that both major party presidential nominees and their running mates oppose criminalizing people over cannabis.

The ad—titled “We’re All Saying the Same Thing”—came just days after Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, reaffirmed her support for legalizing marijuana. That followed weeks of silence on the issue after she rose to the top of the ticket.

Smart & Safe Florida took that opportunity to compile a roundup of clips featuring Harris and running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D)—as well as former President Donald Trump, the GOP nominee, and his VP pick Sen. JD Vance (R-OH)—voicing support for reform.

Trump, a Florida resident, is the only candidate who has specifically endorsed Amendment 3, but he’s historically taken a states’ rights position on legalization overall. Recently, he also came out in support of federal rescheduling and allowing marijuana industry access to the banking system.

Outside the presidential race, there’s been a mix of support and opposition for the Florida legalization amendment on both sides of the partisan spectrum.

For example, the former head of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under then-President Bill Clinton recently urged Florida voters to reject the marijuana legalization initiative, arguing that it would create a “new addiction-for-profit industry” in the state.

Nikki Fried, the chair of the Florida Democratic Party and a former state agriculture commissioner, recently endorsed Amendment 3. And the chair also laid out a framework for regulating cannabis that she thinks the legislature should enact if voters do approve the reform. That involves automatic expungements for prior marijuana convictions, taking steps to mitigate the risk of monopolization in the industry and directing tax revenue to Black communities and education.

Meanwhile, two congressional Republicans representing Florida also recently weighed in on the state’s marijuana legalization initiative—with Rep. Laurel Lee (R-FL) predicting it will fail and Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) saying he remains undecided on the measure even after former President Donald Trump came out in support of it.

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), for his part, has said he intends to vote against it, strictly because he feels the reform should be enacted statutorily, rather than as a constitutional amendment that would prove more challenging to amend.

On the other hand, Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL), co-chair of the Congressional Cannabis Caucus, predicted earlier this year that the measure will pass.

A pair of Republican and Democratic Florida senators recently teamed up to promote the state marijuana legalization initiative, making a joint appearance in a new ad for the campaign as Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) continues to rally against the measure, claiming it would benefit a corporate “weed cartel.”

Sen. Joe Gruters (R), the former chair of the Florida Republican Party, and Sen. Shevrin Jones (D) stood side-by-side in the ad for Smart & Safe Florida, acknowledging that while they “don’t agree on much—hardly anything” and would be each voting for their respective party’s presidential nominee, they “do agree on this: Amendment 3 is good for Florida.”

While polling has also consistently demonstrated that the ballot measure enjoys majority support from Democrats and Republicans alike—and despite the fact that the 2024 GOP nominee, former President Donald Trump, has endorsed it as well—Florida’s governor has not relented in his crusade to defeat it.

Trulieve CEO Kim Rivers and Gruters, the GOP state senator, also met with Trump ahead of his endorsement of Amendment 3, as well as federal rescheduling and industry banking access.

Meanwhile, another recent survey from the Florida Chamber of Commerce, which is against the cannabis initiative, found that 59 percent of likely voters in the state back Amendment 3.

A separate poll from the James Madison Institute (JMI) showed 64 percent of likely voters in Florida are in favor of the legalization proposal.

Smart & Safe Florida also rolled out another series of new ads last month—including one calling out the hypocrisy of criminalizing cannabis while alcohol is legally available and another featuring a county sheriff making the case for ending marijuana prohibition.

Pennsylvania Voters In GOP-Controlled Districts Support Marijuana Legalization, New Polling Shows

Photo courtesy of Philip Steffan.

By Zach Wendling, Nebraska Examiner

A Lancaster County District Court judge said Friday that the ongoing legal challenges to Nebraska’s two medical cannabis ballot measures might not be resolved by Election Day.

Judge Susan Strong, during a virtual hearing Friday, proposed dividing the trial set to start October 29 into two parts. Under the proposal, attorneys for Secretary of State Bob Evnen (R) and John Kuehn, a former Republican state senator and former State Board of Health member who launched the lawsuit, would need to first prove there are enough questionable signatures.

The challenges would need to prove that a sufficient number of signatures are invalid based on allegations of technical or clerical errors, circulator fraud or malfeasance. If a sufficient number of signatures were successfully challenged, the ballot sponsors would have the opportunity to show proof that some signatures were genuinely collected and should not be tossed.

“If it’s the latter situation and we have to proceed to phase two, we’re talking about going beyond the date of the election,” Strong said Friday. “I don’t know whether we can help that at this point because the timeline is already extremely tight.”

The challenged signatures

Evnen confirmed nearly 90,000 valid signatures on each petition when he certified the ballot September 13. The minimum threshold is 86,499 signatures each on the petitions to legalize and regulate the medical drug.

On September 12, Kuehn launched his lawsuit, which, in his most recent public filings, challenged about 17,000 signatures on each petition.

Strong allowed Kuehn’s case to proceed to determine what is a “clerical or technical error” and what could get a signature removed from a petition.

Evnen is challenging about 49,000 signatures on each petition for alleged circulator fraud and notary malfeasance. Strong said Friday she would let Evnen’s challenge, initiated as part of Kuehn’s lawsuit, move forward “as a practical matter” because the issues raised would be determined either way.

“Signatures may still be counted if the defendants can prove the genuineness of those signatures,” Strong instructed the court.

Timing of a court decision

Sydney Hayes and Daniel Gutman, attorneys for the ballot sponsors, expressed some hesitation with the proposed case timeline, particularly with the closeness to the November 5 election.

“Specifically if part of it were to occur before the election and essentially create an air that the initiative might be invalidated, when it actually may not end up being invalidated by the second trial, which would create voter confusion and ultimately prejudice get-out-the-vote efforts,” Hayes said.

Assistant Attorney General Jennifer Huxoll said the proposal seemed like “an effective path forward.” She said the large number of signatures that Evnen is challenging does not mean he is trying to “bury” the sponsors in reviewing that evidence. She said it’s about election integrity.

The Attorney General’s Office is looking to bring in a handwriting expert for the investigation. Huxoll said if the court rules in the plaintiffs’ favor, it represents “a serious election issue.”

“There’s no gamesmanship going on here, your honor,” Huxoll said. “It’s truly just an effort to get to the bottom of this as quickly as possible and as succinctly as possible.”

Anne Marie Mackin, an attorney for Kuehn, said Strong’s proposal seemed consistent with past case law in terms of the steps needed in a signature-challenge case.

Gutman called Evnen’s challenge “a broader effort to undermine the initiative process.”

“We don’t say that lightly,” Gutman told Strong. “We know that is a bold statement, but it’s justified here because he’s advancing a position in this case that has never been adopted by a single court in Nebraska, and as far as we can tell, has never been adopted by a single court in the entire country.”

Huxoll responded: “At its very essence, fraud and malfeasance in the collection of signatures is not a technicality, and Nebraskans deserve to know whether it occurred here.”

Deputy Solicitor General Zach Viglianco said Evnen’s case is not about “mere technical errors” or “simple sloppiness or mistakes” but “willful” violations of state rules and laws.

Evnen and Attorney General Mike Hilgers (R) have named a total of eight notaries and four petition circulators who they allege committed fraud or malfeasance, including two who have been criminally charged. Two dozen more people are named in the lawsuit. No new criminal charges have been filed.

‘More of a fair shake’

Strong said she would “probably” order the parties to follow her amended timeline, which she described as “really for the defendants’ benefit more than anybody else.”

“I don’t know how you’re going to concentrate on responding to the plaintiff and the secretary of state at the same time you’re trying to prove genuineness of signatures,” Strong said. “I mean, it sounds like an overwhelming task, and that’s why I thought it only makes sense to see if we do have enough fraud, actually provable, intentional fraud, in such numbers that would render those petitions insufficient legally, and they may not.”

Strong said she wants to work with everybody involved in the case and ensure they get a chance to be heard.

“The initiative is on the ballot, so you have that assurance,” Strong said. “My duty is going to be to follow the case law and the statutes and determine whether those petitions are legally insufficient or sufficient. That’s the best way I think we can proceed to let everybody have more of a fair shake.”

The trial is scheduled to begin October 29 and could continue October 31 and November 1, if necessary. The election is November 5. Early voting has already begun.

This story was first published by Nebraska Examiner.

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Photo courtesy of Mike Latimer.