On Monday Donald Trump released his fiscal year 2021 budget which proposes ending existing policy protections for state medical marijuana programs from Justice Department interference.
President Trump had previously implicated that he wasn’t fond of the rider attached to funding bills by indicating the rider itself upon signing a large scale funding bill in December of 2019. This comes amidst Trump prior saying that he was for it as a states rights issue while campaigning to become president. This also comes on the heels of Trump’s support of the STATES Act early in 2018, and other movements in June through September of 2019.
The item in question is a rider that has made an appearance in appropriations legislation every year since 2014. The rider directs that the Justice Department can’t use its funds to prevent states/territories “from implementing their own laws that authorize the use, distribution, possession, or cultivation of medical marijuana.”
Marijuana Moment posted that the proposal also contains “another long-standing rider that blocks Washington, D.C. from using local tax dollars to legalize marijuana sales.” The article also states that the proposal wants to set funding aside for “the FDA to invest in priority activities, including the regulation of cannabis and cannabis derivatives.”
Daniel Lakstins of High Ed Hemp Tours told Texas Cannabis Collective that it “could be a possible set up for federal legalization with language about the FDA being in control.” Lakstins noted that federal taxation could be good for rushing Texas, but bad for legal state entrepreneurs and that similar language has been in the last 3 budgets.
Texans that favor legalization of cannabis on any level should take note of this because even the TCUP would be in jeopardy if this rider were to be stricken from the bill. The Texas Compassionate Use Program may not be much given its limited list of conditions and THC limit of 0.5%. One could probably get the same from legal hemp flower that meets the max discrepancy threshold, but not in concentrate form. But the protections the state has provided its recipients could be jeopardized if the rider doesn’t make it into the final bill.
There isn’t need to fret yet, as past indications have shown that Trump has disagreed with this rider, and so has the Obama administration before him. Yet, advocates may be advised to stay vigilant as to what is transpiring and to not let their guard down. Time will tell how this plays out.