BY RUTH HILL R.N.
Former President Donald Trump held a press-conference Thursday August 8th, 2024, at Mar-a-Lago to discuss the announcement of Vice President Kamala Harris, the 2024 Democratic presidential nominee’s, pick for Vice President Tim Walz. Towards the end of the press-conference he was asked by a reporter his views on marijuana legalization. Trump says he is 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 will “fairly soon” reveal his position on the cannabis legalization measure on the November ballot in Florida, where he is a voter. As we legalize it, I start to agree a lot more because, you know, it’s being legalized all over the country.”
A reporter asked about the Biden-Harris administration push to reschedule cannabis, as well as Kamala Harris, 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.”
The candidate also discussed people he’s issued residential pardons for, including Alice Johnson, who was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole over her role in a cocaine trafficking ring in the 1990s. He said Johnson is a “fantastic woman” who “served 24 years for being on a phone call having to do with drugs, adding that she “was great” and “had another 24 years to go, and it was largely about marijuana, which, in many cases, is now legalized” at the state level.
Harris Put Marijuana People in Jail
“I let a lot of people out [of prison] that had no representation. I went to people in jails, in prison, that we respected. I said, ‘How many of these people should be let out?’” Trump said on Thursday. “We let out large groups of low-income people that were serving like 40 years for something that today you wouldn’t even be put in jail for.” 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.
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. Watch the full interview here.
CA Cannabis Bill AB 2223
In California news, there are over 5 million patients who depend on full spectrum hemp CBD products, and all of them will lose access to this medicine if AB 2223 passes. Broad spectrum and isolate CBD products will still be allowed, but Hemp CBD legacy cultivators will have to reformulate their medicines to comply with this new law if AB 2223 passes. The sad fact is that patients do much better medically with full spectrum oils vs broad spectrum, due to the entourage effect. Full spectrum CBD products will be allowed in the licensed dispensaries, but there are zoning restrictions and extreme taxation issues that will put good medicines out of reach for the majority of Californians. Once this passes here in the Golden State, the domino effect will wipe out full spectrum hemp CBD everywhere.
The California House Appropriations Committee is conducting a hearing on August 15th on AB 2223 that would ban full spectrum hemp CBD products. Bad actors created intoxicating Frankenstein compounds derived from hemp CBD, and exploited loopholes to sell products like Delta 8 THC, THCP, THCO, and HHC into CBD shops, gas stations, and liquor stores across America. However, AB 2223 is not the solution. We must do whatever we can to STOP the CA legislators from passing AB 2223.
Call your CA legislatures and tell them NO on AB 2223. Find your legislators here. send comments to hilruth@gmail.com
