Donald Trump Backs Florida Marijuana Legalization Amendment

Trump says the legislature should ban public pot smoking but that we shouldn't waste money arresting adults for possession.

In a social media post this morning, Republican presidential nominee and former president Donald Trump threw his weight behind a Florida ballot initiative that would legalize recreational marijuana for adults, although he said the state legislature needs to pass laws prohibiting public use.

Trump, a Florida resident, had teased for several weeks that he would announce his position on Amendment 3, a proposed constitutional amendment going before Florida voters this November. In a post on Truth Social this morning, Trump wrote:

In Florida, like so many other States that have already given their approval, personal amounts of marijuana will be legalized for adults with Amendment 3. Whether people like it or not, this will happen through the approval of the Voters, so it should be done correctly. We need the State Legislature to responsibly create laws that prohibit the use of it in public spaces, so we do not smell marijuana everywhere we go, like we do in many of the Democrat run Cities. At the same time, someone should not be a criminal in Florida, when this is legal in so many other States. We do not need to ruin lives & waste Taxpayer Dollars arresting adults with personal amounts of it on them, and no one should grieve a loved one because they died from fentanyl laced marijuana. We will make America SAFE again!

Amendment 3 would legalize recreational marijuana, allowing adults 21 and older to possess up to three ounces of marijuana and five grams of concentrated THC. 

Only companies already licensed to sell medical marijuana would be allowed to sell recreational marijuana at first, although the legislature would be free to create its own regulatory scheme. The measure would not allow home cultivation or expunge old marijuana convictions.

Trump's post does not directly say that he will vote for it. It appears to suggest Amendment 3's passage is inevitable. But it is a notable choice by the candidate.

Trump frequently muses on the campaign trail about executing drug dealers, but as president he also commuted the sentences of some federal drug offenders whose sentences he called unjust.

Trump's Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, was once a legalization skeptic too. But she has likewise softened her stance to meet the prevailing political winds, making her and Trump two unlikely decriminalization supporters.

Trump's support is also a thumb in the eye of his former primary opponent, Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. DeSantis opposes the amendment and has poured considerable time and resources into defeating it.

"I've gone to some of these cities that have had this everywhere, it smells, there's all these things," DeSantis said at a press conference earlier this year. "I don't want to be able to go walk in front of shops and have this. I don't want every hotel to really smell."

The Amendment 3 campaign is bankrolled by multi-state marijuana companies operating medical marijuana dispensaries in Florida, which stand to have the entire recreational market to themselves if the amendment passes.

Florida's hemp industry, which is closely aligned with Florida Republicans, has allied itself with DeSantis in an attempt to keep from getting locked out of the market.

Amendment 3's passage is by no means assured. Constitutional amendments in Florida require a 60 percent supermajority to pass.

Florida voters approved an amendment legalizing medical marijuana in 2016, with 71 percent supporting the measure.