The 2024 elections have come and gone. Regardless of whether your preferred candidates won, the results of the election will have significant impacts on cannabis reform. Some of those impacts will be seen almost immediately following the first of the year. Others will be more long-term in nature.
President and Attorney General
Let us start with president-elect Donald Trump and his choice for attorney general, Matt Gaetz. Trump signaled his support for legalized marijuana throughout the 2024 campaign. He went so far as to urge his fellow Floridians to vote ‘yes’ on a state ballot initiative that would have made recreational marijuana legal.
I do not suspect that Trump will change his position over the next four years. He appears to be a solid proponent of cannabis reform moving forward. As for Gaetz, he has a long history of being pro-cannabis. He has already stated his intent to “go easy on marijuana” during his tenure as AG.
The House and Senate
The GOP will take control of the Senate next year. They also look to hold onto the House. That could be either good or bad depending on your perspective. The House has traditionally been more friendly to cannabis reform. And in fact, U.S. Representatives continually pass reform bills that stall in the Senate. I do not see the House changing tack in the coming years.
As usual, the Senate remains the wildcard here. Senators recently elected John Thune to take over as majority leader from Kentucky senator Mitch McConnell. Thune has a history of being anti-cannabis.
According to Marijuana Moment, Thune signed on to a letter earlier this year, a letter encouraging the DEA to reject the idea of moving marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act. If the DEA doesn’t get rescheduling done by the end of the year, it’s quite possible they won’t do it at all.
Senator Thune has also been long opposed to SAFE, a piece of legislation that would eliminate the barriers currently preventing the banking industry from doing business with the cannabis industry. As Senate Majority Leader, I cannot see Thune allowing SAFE to see the light of day in 2025.
Marijuana at the State Level
Not much has changed at the state level as a result of the 2024 elections. Florida was seen as a bellwether of how far we have come in cannabis reform. The fact that Floridians rejected recreational marijuana says something important. It suggests that the proverbial bloom might finally be off the rose. The push for recreational marijuana may be on hold for the next several years due to a more conservative swing in this selection cycle.
That is good news in red states like Utah, where the operators of the medical marijuana pharmacy Beehive Farmacy say their lawmakers are not all that keen on giving recreational consumption the green light. Only medical cannabis is currently allowed in the Beehive State. That’s good for Beehive Farmacy and its competitors across the state who don’t have to worry about losing business to the recreational market.
On the other hand, the election results do not bode as well for blue states looking to add psychedelics to state-legal marijuana. A more conservative swing in election results suggests to psychedelic proponents that legalization is a hill too high to climb right now.
Obviously, we will not see the full impacts on cannabis reform begin to unfold until next year. It could be several years before we understand just how big those impacts are. One thing is for sure, the people’s voice will affect cannabis reform in some way.
