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If former President Donald Trump endorses a Florida marijuana legalization ballot initiative ahead of the election, it would "guarantee victory," his longtime ally and GOP political operative Roger Stone says.
While Trump has yet to say where he stands on the measure, which he'll have a chance to vote on this November as a Florida resident, he said last week that he'll be making a statement about Amendment 3 "fairly soon."
Stone has long advocated for cannabis reform despite his affinity for former President Richard Nixon, whose administration rejected a decriminalization recommendation from a federal commission.
He told Marijuana Moment in a phone interview on Monday that he's unsure how Trump will ultimately come down on the Florida legalization proposal, though he expects that the former president will at least maintain his broader position that states should be allowed to set their own marijuana policies without federal intervention.
But if Trump ultimately endorses the initiative? It "would guarantee victory," Stone said. If he takes a neutral stance, Stone added, that "will make this a contest."
"President Trump's position in 2016 was that this is a state's rights issue, and that the people in all cases should decide," he said. "Whether he would vote yes personally [on Amendment 3] is less important than letting the people decide. That's kind of always been his position."
"I think he now recognizes that cannabis has, for some people, great medicinal value, and he's very much pro-letting people make their own decisions," Stone, who is also a Florida resident and formally endorsed the legalization measure over the weekend, said.
He added that Trump's most recent remarks signaling that he disagrees with criminalizing people over marijuana as more states enact legalization are "obviously consistent" with certain criminal justice reforms he enacted as president, including bipartisan sentencing reform legislation he signed into law.
Ultimately, however, the former president gave an "interesting but inconclusive answer" about where he stands on the Florida measure, Stone said. What he did say is 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."
"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 said. "So I think obviously there's a lot of sentiment to doing that."
While not an explicit endorsement of major marijuana reform, the statement represents another example of Trump departing from the harsh anti-drug rhetoric he's been employing over this latest campaign, at least when it comes to marijuana. And while it's unclear whether he will choose to back the Florida cannabis legalization measure that he will have the chance to vote on as a resident, he did not take the opportunity to denounce it, despite Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis's (R) campaign against the reform measure.
Notably, pro-legalization U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) said this past week that he intends to vote against the ballot initiative, arguing that the reform should be enacted legislatively via statute and not as a constitutional amendment that would create barriers to adjusting the law down the road.
Stone, however, said the prospect of the conservative legislature advancing adult-use legalization in Florida is "sadly unrealistic," and that Amendment 3 would address access issues in the state's existing medical cannabis program that he described as "cumbersome, invasive, restrictive, expensive and non-user friendly."
"In Florida, we just have the ongoing problem of a Republican legislature dominated by a number of social conservatives who don't see the medicinal value of this and probably never will," Stone, who received a commutation and presidential pardon from Trump after being convicted of making false statements, obstruction and witness tampering in probe of the administration's alleged Russian collusion.
Meanwhile, 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.
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.
With respect to the Florida marijuana initiative, a hedge fund billionaire announced earlier this month that he's spending $20 million "in support of candidates and to oppose Amendment 3." Of that, a $12 million donation will go directly to the Vote No on 3 campaign.
Overall, there's been a mixed bag of supports and opponents of the legalization measure. For example, a Florida GOP senator recently endorsed the ballot initiative, breaking with the state Republican party that he previously chaired.
The Florida Republican Party officially came out against the marijuana initiative in May, clearing the way for the governor to raise money to fund an opposition campaign against the measure.
According to the latest polling, the initiative does have enough support to pass, with majority support across every demographic surveyed. Overall, 64 percent of voters said they backed the proposal, surpassing the 60 percent threshold required to pass a constitutional amendment.
One opposition campaign, Vote No On 3, also recently commissioned a poll on the measure that similarly found 64 percent of voters in favor of the reform.
Meanwhile, the GOP state senator's endorsement of the legalization measure came one day after the Florida Police Chiefs Association (FPCA) and the Florida Sheriffs Association (FSA) both came out against Amendment 3. They argued that the reform would cause increases in youth use, impaired driving, illicit operations and tax costs for residents, citing dubious evidence.
Last month, the governor also lashed out against Amendment 3 at the Republican National Convention, making hyperbolic claims about what the reform would allow—claims backers say are "absolutely untrue."
DeSantis called the proposed constitutional amendment "limitless," arguing that it would establish a right to marijuana that would be more fundamental than First Amendment or Second Amendment protections for free speech and guns, respectively.
Speaking at a recent police event, DeSantis falsely claimed that most Colorado voters "regret" approving marijuana legalization. In fact, recent polling shows that the reform continues to enjoy strong support there.
Last month, news broke that DeSantis's so-called "Florida Freedom Fund" received a $100,000 donation from the cannabis company group POB Ventures in order to help defeat the marijuana and abortion proposals. That amount was nearly ten times what the campaign had raised in total at the beginning of July.
In an exclusive interview with Marijuana Moment, the CEO of POB Ventures, Patrick O'Brien, said he's not against adult-use cannabis legalization in principle—but is instead troubled by the specific language of the ballot initiative because it provides an option, rather than a mandate, for regulators to approve additional licenses.
Suspicions about the motivations behind the contribution to DeSantis's PAC aren't likely to dissolve, especially amid new reporting from CBS News Miami that unnamed hemp businesses have joined forces to back DeSantis in his fight against the legalization measure, with a pledge to contribute $5 million collectively to the state Republican Party after the governor vetoed the bill that ostensibly would have wiped out the market by banning most consumable cannabinoid products.
It's been previously reported that the governor is hoping to garner support for his efforts to defeat the marijuana legalization initiative from the state's hemp industry. DeSantis seemed to concede in June that his veto of a bill to ban most consumable hemp-derived cannabinoids was at least partly because he hoped the market would aid in his anti-legalization campaign.
The DeSantis campaign committee, even with the recent contributions, is still miles behind the legalization campaign, Smart & Safe Florida, in terms of fundraising. The legalization effort has raised over $60 million since launching in late 2022.
DeSantis has been railing against the marijuana measure for months—most recently arguing that it would protect the right to use cannabis more strongly than the First Amendment protects free speech or the Second Amendment protects gun rights—and again claiming that the reform has been a "failed experiment" in states such as Colorado.
The governor said that the proposal would allow people to "do marijuana wherever you want—just smoke it, take it, and it would turn Florida into San Francisco or Chicago or some of these places."
He also reprised one of his chief complaints about the potential impact of legalization: smelling cannabis.
"We've got to keep our streets clean. We cannot have every town smelling like marijuana. We cannot have every hotel smelling—theme parks," he said, adding that voters don't really understand the specifics of the legalization proposal and that ballot initiatives are generally "so bogus."
DeSantis acknowledged that the state Supreme Court has a role in reviewing ballot language for constitutionality, and that a majority of justices determined that the marijuana measure met the legal standard. But while he previously correctly predicted the court would approve the initiative following a challenge from state Attorney General Ashley Moody (R), he now says the two dissenting justices were "correct" in trying to block voters from deciding on the measure.
DeSantis also claimed in June that that if voters approve the marijuana legalization initiative, people "will be able to bring 20 joints to an elementary school"—and he again complained about the prevalent odor of cannabis that he says would result from the reform.
Legalization has "not worked in any single place," the governor said, and he challenged a recent ad from the campaign that promoted regulating cannabis as an alternative to the status quo of people using untested cannabis from illicit sellers.
Meanwhile, according to a Fox News poll released in June, two in three Florida voters support the cannabis initiative—with the issue proving more popular than the governor himself. The survey showed majority support for legalization across the political spectrum, too.
The governor has consistently argued that the state shouldn't go beyond the existing medical cannabis program and that broader reform would negatively impact the quality of life for Floridians. The Florida Republican Party also formally came out against Amendment 3 in May.
Smart & Safe Florida separately announced in March that it was working to form a coalition of veterans to build voter support for the reform, and the campaign has since formally launched that initiative.
Here's what the Smart & Safe Florida marijuana legalization initiative would accomplish:
Here's the full text of the ballot title and summary:
"Allows adults 21 years or older to possess, purchase, or use marijuana products and marijuana accessories for non-medical personal consumption by smoking, ingestion, or otherwise; allows Medical Marijuana Treatment Centers, and other state licensed entities, to acquire, cultivate, process, manufacture, sell, and distribute such products and accessories. Applies to Florida law; does not change, or immunize violations of, federal law. Establishes possession limits for personal use. Allows consistent legislation. Defines terms. Provides effective date."
Economic analysts from the Florida legislature and DeSantis's office, estimate that the marijuana legalization initiative would generate between $195.6 million and $431.3 million in new sales tax revenue annually if voters enact it. Those figures could increase considerably if lawmakers opted to impose an additional excise tax on cannabis transactions that's similar to the ones in place in other legalized states.
Unlike the governor, U.S. Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL) said in April that he does believe Florida voters will approve the legalization initiative.
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