Will He or Won't He? (Reschedule, That Is)

Trump's immediate reaction to a question about rescheduling on Monday. 

The Washington Post reported last Thursday that President Trump was planning to issue an executive order directing federal agencies to move ahead with cannabis rescheduling. The outlet also said the president met last week in the Oval Office with marijuana industry executives, Health and Human Services Secretary RFK Jr., and Medicare Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz. During that meeting, Trump phoned Mike Johnson, the House speaker, who reportedly expressed his opposition.

Trump is also interested in pushing Medicare to allow for the reimbursement of CBD products, a person with direct knowledge of the meeting told WP Intelligence. It’s a priority of Trump’s longtime friend and Mar-a-Lago club member Howard Kessler, who was among those in attendance at the Oval Office meeting. In September, Trump posted a video created by a group Kessler founded that endorsed Medicare coverage of CBD. 

Other industry execs who were part of the discussion at the White House were Kim Rivers, a Trump donor from the cannabis company Trulieve, and Jim Hagedorn from Scotts Miracle-Gro. Also present was Trump chief-of-staff Susie Wiles, who has ties to Trulieve, and whose daughter Caroline is reportedly dating "King of Gas Station Weed" Bret Worley. 

According to Marijuana Moment, there’s been mixed reporting about the timing of a possible rescheduling action, with CNBC reporting that the executive order would be issued as early as Monday (yesterday), and Axios reporting that the reform is expected to come early next year. 

The right wing is pushing back hard, with the prohibitionist group SAM making a six-figure advertising buy against the move, the drug testing industry pissing themselves, and the Wall Street Journal running a series of opeds on the topic, asking if MAHA means "Make America High Again." However, House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) favors rescheduling, arguing that marijuana possession crimes have harmed minorities in particular in his home state and that there’s been “an injustice” when it comes to mass incarceration of drug possession. 

Asked about it at a press conference yesterday, Trump looked flummoxed for a second, then confirmed rescheduling was being considered, saying, "A lot of people want to see it, the reclassification, because it leads to tremendous amounts of research that can't be done unless you reclassify, so we are looking at that very strongly." 

Hiding behind researching rather than legalizing is a bogus dodge: NORML just reported in its post "Cannabis Rescheduling: Separating Fact from Fiction" that cannabis is already among the more well-studied psychoactive substances, with researchers publishing more than 37,000 scientific papers about cannabis since the beginning of 2015. Although the approval process for these trials is "unduly onerous," rescheduling alone won't change that. 

As to the often-asked question, "Will rescheduling make cannabis legal as an FDA-approved medicine?" NORML concludes the answer is No. Rescheduling would be an acknowledgment from the federal government that cannabis possesses “currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States.” This recognition is distinct from it being formally endorsed by the US Food and Drug Administration, which requires an altogether different approval process. As a result, rescheduling would not likely mandate the sale of cannabis in pharmacies, which is required for FDA-approved scheduled substances.

Wiles In the News

Meanwhile, the blockbuster news today is the release of a pair of Vanity Fair articles based on 11 interviews with Wiles, who said teetotaler Trump has "an alcoholic's personality" and questioned many of his actions, like his retribution (her word) prosecution of Letitia James, defunding USAID, and pardoning the January 6 rioters. She tried to deny that she called Elon Musk "an avowed ketamine user" until the reporter provided a tape to the New York Times of her saying just that. 

When asked about the administration bombing boats in the Caribbean and killing everyone on board, Wiles is quoted saying, “The president believes in harsh penalties for drug dealers, as he’s said many, many times…. These are not fishing boats, as some would like to allege....I’m saying that this is a war on drugs.” 

Marco Rubio told the article's author Chris Whipple in October, “These are not alleged drug dealers. These are drug dealers. Where are the YouTube videos of the family saying my poor innocent fisherman son, you know, was killed?” [Um, like this one?] 

When asked about Trump’s increasingly frequent verbal attacks on women, as when, in November, he snapped “Quiet, Piggy!” at a female reporter from Bloomberg, Wiles replied: “He’s a counterpuncher. And increasingly, in our society, the punchers are women.” She sure threw a few. 

The Reason for Targeting Venezuela Revealed

Instead of taking action on cannabis yesterday, Trump signed an executive order declaring fentanyl a "weapon of mass destruction." This could set the stage for what he really wants to do: invade Caribbean countries and steal their oil. He seized a Venezualean oil tanker on Monday and today, he ordered a blockade of all "sanctioned" oil tankers into Venezuela, alleging that the oil is being used for drug trafficking. 

"For the theft of our Assets, and many other reasons, including Terrorism, Drug Smuggling, and Human Trafficking, the Venezuelan Regime has been designated a FOREIGN TERRORIST ORGANIZATION," Trump said. The New York Times has noted that Venezuela isn't involved in the fentanyl trade.

Last month, Rep. Maria Salazar (R-FL) said: "We're about to go in ... We need to go in ... Venezuela for the American oil companies will be a field day.” Or as Sanho Tree at the Institute for Policy Studies put it (weeks ago): "Trump never met a petrochemical he didn’t covet.”