Pro-Trump influencers push federal cannabis reform 👀

TRUMP 2.0
Pro-Trump influencers push federal cannabis reform 👀

Driving the news: President Donald Trump offered tepid support for cannabis reform on the campaign trail last year.

In a series of social media posts, Trump said he would vote for Amendment 3, which if passed would have legalized cannabis in Florida, urged Congress to pass cannabis banking reform legislation, and supported moving cannabis from the most restrictive Schedule I to the less restrictive Schedule III — a process initiated by former President Joe Biden that has since stalled amid lawsuits and reported pushback from the Drug Enforcement Administration. 

But since Trump took office, cannabis reform has ground to a halt. Stop us if you’ve heard this before, but there are some signs that may soon change.

What happened: On Tuesday, a number of pro-Trump influencers and political accounts on the social media site X.com posted suspiciously similar talking points supportive of rescheduling and other limited federal cannabis reform.

Trumpworld, of course, is quite a cast of characters but at least they all seem to be swimming in the right direction on this issue. 

The accounts include Gunther Eagleman, a pseudonym for David J. Freeman who has 1.4 million followers on the platform, Alex Bruesewitz, a right-wing political commentator and Trump advisor who was instrumental in popularizing the widely debunked conspiracy theory that Haitian immigrants were eating people’s pets in Ohio, Matt Gaetz, the disgraced former Congressman who was Trump’s original pick to lead the Justice Department before his candidacy sank in the Senate, as well as boxer and friend-of-Trump Mike Tyson.

Tyson runs the cannabis brand Tyson 2.0 and has been on a media tear promoting cannabis reform in recent weeks, appearing on Fox News multiple times. 

What they’re saying: “As a former police officer, I strongly support President Trump on wanting to reschedule marijuana from schedule I to a schedule III,” Freeman said via his Gunther Eagleman account.

“Foreign nations are outpacing the U.S. in medical marijuana research, and we must take the lead. Rescheduling is an effective compromise it maintains illegality while enabling critical studies to advance our understanding and innovation in this field.”

And: “It's illogical that cannabis is classified as more dangerous than fentanyl. During the campaign President Trump expressed support for rescheduling cannabis to Schedule III, maintaining its illegal status but clearing the path for more robust medical research in our country,” Bruesewitz said. 

Notice anything similar in the talking points?

What the polls say: Recent polls suggest cannabis reform is one of the few areas where both Republicans and Democrats agree. 

Nearly 90% of Americans support federal legalization for medical purposes, and 54% say it should be federally legal (down slightly from last year), according to a recent Pew poll. 

Still, only 43% of Republicans support full federal legalization, compared to 66% of Democrats. But the vast majority of 18-29 year olds (65%) — a key demographic that helped re-elect Trump — support legalization.

Cannabis stocks on the move: Cannabis stocks responded positively to the news. 

The AdvisorShares Pure US Cannabis ETF, which tracks a basket of US cannabis stocks, is up nearly 15% over the last five days. But it’s still down over 32% since the start of the year. 

Other cannabis stocks are up as well, including Tilray Brands — up 31% over the last five days — and Canopy Growth, up nearly 10% over the same time period. 

But, but, but: As the old adage goes, all policy is personnel and many of the personnel in the Trump Administration don’t appear to be friendly to cannabis.

Trump’s first term was broadly regressive on cannabis reform, as we’ve written. Key political appointees, like Attorney General Pam Bondi, have campaigned against cannabis reform in the past. Russell Vought, the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, has also spoken about his opposition to cannabis.

Terrance Cole, Trump’s pick to lead the DEA — the agency where the rescheduling decision ultimately rests — said restarting the process to reschedule cannabis would be “one of his first priorities,” once he’s confirmed. But he declined to answer his position on the issue, just that he would re-start the stalled hearings. 

On the other hand, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the chair of the Department of Health and Human Services and a former Democrat, supported cannabis legalization during his independent run for President last year. 

It’s a similar story in Congress: Social conservatives still have prominent positions in Trump’s big tent Republican Party, which makes the prospects for Congress-led reform less clear.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune and House Speaker Mike Johnson are old-school Republicans from states without legal cannabis, meaning their willingness to put forward pro-reform legislation, like the SAFER Banking Act, which would normalize the industry’s relationship to the banking sector, is probably low. But like the big beautiful bill, they will also likely fall in line with the President. 

Our take: Look, reading the cannabis reform tea leaves under a president like Donald Trump is bound to be a futile exercise. 

No one really has any idea what’s going to happen other than the man himself, and he certainly shoots from the hip. A chunk of his base now blames him for covering up the Epstein files, which also means he’s probably looking for a distraction like cannabis.

It’s also true that Trump 2.0 is much more unshackled, and much less beholden to the social conservative wing of his party than his first stint in the Oval Office. This time, he will more likely get what he wants. 

The political groundwork is there: Cannabis reform remains popular for both young voters and the MAGA base Trump wants to keep happy. 

The Republican argument for reform is clear: It’s promoting small businesses, job growth, state’s rights, and creating a new, American-led industry from the ground up.

And for better or worse, whatever happens with cannabis reform will take on a ‘Red hue’ as we’ve written — the terms of the discussion and the regulatory framework will now be dictated by Trump and the Republicans, rather than progressive Democrats, who were unable to get much cannabis reform legislation passed under Biden.

So if federal reform does happen under Trump, it’s quite unlikely to look anything like New York’s market, which put social justice and diversity front-and-center.

It will look like the industry’s wish-list, and big, publicly traded cannabis companies will be best positioned to take advantage. 

-JB

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Texas sets agenda for special session 🌿

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott released the agenda for the state legislature’s special session on July 21. The agenda includes coming up with legislation to ban intoxicating hemp sales to children under 21, and legislation to “comprehensively” regulate hemp products. The Texas legislature passed SB 3, which would’ve banned all THC sales in the state, but it was vetoed last-minute by Abbott in June. 

California decriminalized cannabis 50 years ago 🎂

Wednesday marked the 50th anniversary since the California legislature passed the Moscone Act, becoming the first of five states that made similar moves that year. The act came shortly after the Senate held a hearing on decriminalization that served as a rebuke to President Richard Nixon's War on Drugs. California NORML, a pro-legalization advocacy group, has more on the history of decriminalization in the state. 

Regulators in Vermont and Hawaii improve transparency 💻

Vermont and Hawaii, along with Alaska, Connecticut and Maine are all rated by CRB Monitor as having the most transparent cannabis regulators, based on how accessible they make license ownership information. CRB Monitor, which maintains a nationwide database of cannabis licenses, released its annual transparency scorecard in June. 

No challenges to OK legalization bid 📜

As of Tuesday, the campaign to put cannabis legalization on Oklahoma ballots in 2026 can soon start gathering signatures, organizers say. The Sooner State requires a 90-day period after a ballot question is proposed in which legal challenges can be issued. That period expired this week, meaning voters are one step closer to being able to try legalization again. Oklahoma last considered legalization in March 2023, where 61.67% voted to oppose.

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