Trump Supports Florida Marijuana Legalization Ballot Measure, But Wants Lawmakers To Ban Public Smoking

Former President Donald Trump said on Saturday that he believes voters in his home state of Florida will approve a marijuana legalization initiative on the November ballot, arguing that “someone should not be a criminal in Florida, when this is legal in so many other States.”

Trump added that current policy ruins lives, wastes taxpayer dollars and puts people at risk of dying from cannabis tainted with fentanyl.

The former president wants lawmakers to follow up on legalization if voters approve it, however, by passing a law to ban public cannabis consumption.

“In Florida, like so many other States that have already given their approval, personal amounts of marijuana will be legalized for adults with Amendment 3,” Trump said in a post on his social media site Truth Social. “Whether people like it or not, this will happen through the approval of the Voters, so it should be done correctly.”

“We need the State Legislature to responsibly create laws that prohibit the use of it in public spaces, so we do not smell marijuana everywhere we go, like we do in many of the Democrat run Cities,” he added. “At the same time, someone should not be a criminal in Florida, when this is legal in so many other States. We do not need to ruin lives & waste Taxpayer Dollars arresting adults with personal amounts of it on them, and no one should grieve a loved one because they died from fentanyl laced marijuana.”

“We will make America SAFE again!” he said.

Florida Sen. Joe Gruters (R), a former state Republican Party chairman, cheered Trump’s support for legalization.

“I am incredibly proud to have President Trump stand alongside us in our effort to end needless arrests and incarcerations of adults for simple possession of marijuana and to give Floridians the same individual freedom to choose safe, tested products that more than half the country already enjoys,” he said.

Gruters has pledged to push legislation to ban public marijuana smoking if voters approve legalization on the ballot, as Trump now says he supports.

“Our shared goals to expand our freedoms and keep Floridians safe from fentanyl-laced marijuana from the illicit market is why Amendment 3 has broad support and will pass in November,” the senator said. “President Trump’s call for smart implementation is exactly why I filed a bill to prevent smoking in public. Marijuana should be consumed at home, and I will work alongside my colleagues in the legislature to ensure Florida does this right.”

I am incredibly proud to have President Trump stand alongside us in our effort to end needless arrests and incarcerations of adults for simple possession of marijuana and to give Floridians the same individual freedom to choose safe, tested products that more than half the… pic.twitter.com/AleWepiEiT

— Joe Gruters (@JoeGruters) August 31, 2024

Earlier this month at a press conference, Trump told a reporter that he’s starting to “agree a lot more” that people should not be criminalized over marijuana given that it’s “being legalized all over the country”—adding that he would “fairly soon” reveal his position on the Florida ballot measure.

“As we legalize it, I start to agree a lot more because, you know, it’s being legalized all over the country,” Trump said at the time. “Florida has something coming up. I’ll be making a statement about that fairly soon.”

A reporter had asked about the Biden-Harris administration push to reschedule cannabis, as well as Vice President Kamala Harris, the 2024 Democratic presidential nominee, stating repeatedly that people should not be incarcerated over simple cannabis offenses.

“As we legalize it throughout the country—whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing—it’s awfully hard to have people all over the jails that are in jail right now for something that’s legal,” Trump replied. “So I think obviously there’s a lot of sentiment to doing that.”

Longtime ally and GOP political operative Roger Stone, who is also a Florida resident and supports the legalization proposal, later told Marijuana Moment that if Trump did ultimately endorse the measure it would “guarantee victory.”

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC), who is sponsoring a bill to federally legalize marijuana called the States Reform Act, separately said that while she hopes Trump will back the Biden administration’s rescheduling move, she also said part of the reason Republicans in Congress have declined to embrace marijuana policy change is because they’re “afraid of it.”

Trump also recently went after Harris over her prosecutorial record on marijuana, claiming that she put “thousands and thousands of Black people in jail” for cannabis offenses—but the full record of her time in office is more nuanced.

Trump’s line of attack, while misleading, was nonetheless notable in the sense that the GOP presidential nominee implied that he disagrees with criminalizing people over marijuana and is moving to leverage the idea that Harris played a role in racially disproportionate mass incarceration.

Meanwhile, Harris selected Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) as her running mate, choosing a candidate who backed numerous cannabis reform measures in Congress, called for an end to prohibition when he was running for governor and then signed a comprehensive legalization bill into law in 2023.

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.

Before President Joe Biden bowed out of the race, his campaign made much of the president’s mass cannabis pardons and rescheduling push, drawing a contrast with the Trump administration’s record. The Harris campaign so far has not spoken to that particular issue, and the nominee has yet to publicly discuss marijuana policy issues since her own campaign launched.

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Back in Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has doubled down on his opposition campaign against the marijuana legalization initiative that will appear on the state’s November ballot.

Meanwhile, a Democratic congresswoman who recently said she was on the fence about whether she’d vote for the legalization ballot initiative this November has officially given the measure her endorsement.

There’s been a mixed bag of feedback on Amendment 3 from members of Florida’s congressional delegation.

One pro-legalization GOP congressman, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), recently 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.

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