Last year at the NORML Lobbying Day in DC, I met Nikki Narduzzi of Virginia NORML, who is also active in RAMP (Republicans Against Marijuana Prohibition). She's a wonderful, dedicated young woman with a compelling personal story to tell about medical marijuana.
Now another Nikki—South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, who signed a CBD legalization measure into law in 2014—has been tapped by Donald Trump as UN Ambassador.
Haley said in 2014 about legalizing marijuana, “We’ve tried to do some sentencing reform in the past and we’re in the process of analyzing whether that’s worked. For marijuana reform I’m not there. I know the legislators have stated-- there’s a bill coming through now that they’re starting to do, but I don’t get a sense from the people of South Carolina nor do I feel that at this point it’s a hot topic or something that is moving forward. We’re watching the other states do what they can which again I appreciate that states can make those decisions and while they are doing that in the best interest of them we have not seen that as a priority and in the best interest of South Carolina.”
In 2015, Haley signed a hemp cultivation bill into law.
Haley, 44, supported Senator Marco Rubio of Florida during the Republican primaries, and she was a prominent and frequent critic of Mr. Trump early in his run.
Ms. Haley called out Mr. Trump in January when she gave the official Republican rebuttal to President Obama’s State of the Union address, and she later took him to task for his failure to condemn groups like the Ku Klux Klan.
In a follow-up interview on the “Today” show on NBC, Ms. Haley — the daughter of immigrants from India — said, “Mr. Trump has definitely contributed to what I think is just irresponsible talk.”
The following month, she condemned Mr. Trump for not speaking out against white supremacy more forcefully. Ms. Haley drew on South Carolina’s experience last year with the murder of nine African-Americans in a Charleston church, saying that was exactly the kind of hate that Mr. Trump refused to repudiate.
“The K.K.K. came to South Carolina from out of state to protest on our Statehouse grounds,” she said at a rally in Georgia. “I will not stop until we fight a man that chooses not to disavow the K.K.K. That is not a part of our party. That is not who we are.”
Trump formerly called Haley, "weak, very weak on illegal immigration," despite the fact that in the South Carolina legislature she voted in favor of a law that requires all immigrants to carry documentation at all times proving that they are legally in the United States. The law was adopted, but is currently the subject of a lawsuit initiated by the United States Justice Department (Wikipedia).
Haley is the first woman to be nominated to a cabinet position by Trump. She is pro-life, and also voted for two separate bills that required a woman to first look at an ultrasound and then wait 24 hours before being permitted to have an abortion. [At the first 2023 Republican presidential candidate debate, Haley said she was personally pro-life, but called for stopping the demonization of women for having abortions.]
At age 12, Haley began helping with the bookkeeping at her mother's ladies' clothing shop. The Economist likened her to another shopkeeper's daughter, Margaret Thatcher, writing that Haley's girlhood job in her mother's shop gave her, "an extreme watchfulness about overheads and a sharp aversion to government intrusion."
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