The MAGA Marijuana Split [View all]

[Celerity]

Is MAGAjuana a buzzkill for Trump’s base?

https://www.notus.org/newsletters/the-maga-marijuana-split

Trump is reportedly weighing reclassifying marijuana to loosen up federal restrictions on the drug — what some see as an approval ratings Hail Mary at a time when those numbers aren’t looking ideal. But many MAGA figures online warn it’s a bad trip, arguing reclassification could be a harmful stance that might alienate pro-family parts of Trump’s base.

“This is an example of where the maybe populist strain in the Trump coalition is at odds with the more traditional conservative, social conservative, religious conservative, whatever you call it, part of the party,” Patrick T. Brown, a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, told us. He’s not a fan of weed’s effects on “young men's labor force participation and marriageability, to put it bluntly.”

Support for marijuana legalization among Republicans dropped 13 percentage points from 2024 to this year, now sitting at 40%, Brown pointed out. Close watchers of this policy space said this social conservative reaction to the broadly popular idea of legalization has remained the loudest part of the MAGA coalition in Trump 2.0.

Marijuana Moment has been tracking the coalition all year, and we asked EIC Tom Angell who the loudest MAGA voices in favor of deregulation are. “I think the most prominent folks are Roger Stone and Matt Gaetz,” he told us. “All polling shows broad approval of the use of cannabis for medicinal purposes, even among Republicans and conservatives,” Stone texted us. “If the president decides to reschedule cannabis, it will most certainly be a step in the right direction.”

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