As Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick pushes to shut down a Texas cannabis industry that he and GOP lawmakers helped create, Donald Trump announced on Sunday that he will vote to legalize the use of recreational marijuana for adults in Florida at the polls there this fall.
"As I have previously stated, I believe it is time to end needless arrests and incarcerations of adults for small amounts of marijuana for personal use," Trump declared in a post on Truth Social. "As a Floridian, I will be voting YES in Amendment 3 this November."
Trump said that he would work as the president to ease restrictions that banks face with customers in the legal marijuana industry. The former president also indicated he would have the federal government "focus on research to unlock the medical uses of marijuana" if he beats Democrat Kamala Harris in November.
Texas only allows the sale of small amounts of marijuana for medicinal purposes that are highly limited and require prescriptions to obtain. Pot for any use is strictly prohibited in six states that Trump carried in 2020. Two dozen states have legalized marijuana for both recreational and medical use. Four states with legal weed for adults - Alaska, Missouri, Montana and Ohio - backed Trump in the race that President Joe Biden four years ago.
But Governor Greg Abbott and the Republican-controlled Texas Legislature set the stage for a full-scale cannabis industry with THC products for smoking and edibles when they legalized hemp for commercial use in 2019. GOP leaders and lawmakers have effectively acknowledged that they were opening the gates for cannabis products that are just as potent if not stronger than marijuana sold legally in half the states in the U.S.
But their handiwork is evident in more than 7,000 dispensaries that have mushroomed in cities across the Lone Star State in the past year with cannabis products made from hemp with Delta 8, Delta-9 and flower in the form of THCA.
Patrick, who serves as Trump's state campaign chairman, is going 180-degrees from the ex-president with a Texas Senate study that he ordered amid plans to ban Delta-8 and Delta-9 products after supporting the hemp legislation that effectively legalized them.
Abbott appeared to be asleep at the wheel as well when he signed the hemp bill based on his attempt in 2021 to have state health officials ban Delta-8 with an administrative ruling. But retailers successfully challenged the prohibition - and cannabis dispensaries started popping up here last year to the lieutenant governor's dismay.
Trump could be lying about his support for recreational marijuana in hopes of luring voters in battleground states like Arizona, Michigan and Nevada where it's already fully legal for adults. Trump's position on the Florida initiative could prompt an abrupt about-face by Republicans in Austin that could defuse Patrick's plan for the resurrection of the Texas prohibition on cannabis here.
Independent Polls of Texas Voters for November 5 General Election |
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