Trump’s advisers had to beg him not to leak news about major drug policy changes
President Donald Trump had to be begged to keep his mouth shut about a seismic shift in U.S. drug policy made this month, according to a Wall Street Journal report published Saturday.
After extensive lobbying and some generous donations from major players in the marijuana industry, the president was convinced to follow through on his campaign promise to change cannabis from a Schedule I to Schedule III substance during a meeting with Kim Rivers, CEO of Florida-based cannabis company Trulieve, Trump confidant Howard Kessler, and Florida Sheriff Gordon Smith in early December.
Eager to share the news immediately, Trump told people in the room that he planned to announce the decision on Truth Social even before an executive order was drafted.
Smith recalled that things got heated when members of the Oval Office tried to prevent their boss from speaking, according to the Journal.
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“The lawyers and his staff started yelling, ‘No sir, you can’t do it yet; there’s a 30-day period, you have to go through this and that,'” Smith recalled. “They had to stop him from publishing.”
It was a surreal display, according to the sheriff, who told the newspaper: “I was amazed by the whole thing.”
Trump, a teetotaler with a tough stance against illicit drugs, defied the wishes of a sizable faction of Republicans with the move, which was made official with a Dec. 18 executive order.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) reportedly spoke by phone during the president’s meeting with Rivers, Smith and Kessler, where he argued that marijuana was a dangerous “gateway drug.”
Cannabis had been on Schedule I since the Controlled Substances Act became law in 1970, classifying it along with heroin, LSD and ecstasy as drugs that “have no currently accepted medical use and have a high potential for abuse.”
CORRECTION: This story has been modified to reflect that cocaine and methamphetamine are Schedule II drugs, not Schedule I.