Cannabis industry executives expressed hope that the incoming president will hold to a campaign pledge of supporting rescheduling, the SAFE Banking Act, and other marijuana reforms.
Now that the 2024 presidential election dust is in the process of settling, cannabis industry insiders may very well be wondering what’s next, given the mixed past policy stances regarding marijuana from President-elect Donald Trump.
The answer is that the status quo is probably the worst-case scenario. In a best-case scenario, Trump pushes a Republican Senate to approve the SAFE Banking Act and possibly even more comprehensive business-friendly reforms for him to sign into law.
That’s the hope, anyway, given Trump’s campaign promise in September of supporting the federal rescheduling process, the SAFE Banking Act, and other “common sense laws,” as the president-elect put it at the time. If he does, the next few years could prove transformative for the U.S. marijuana trade, although rescheduling falls far short of full federal legalization in many key business aspects.
Several industry members and trade groups expressed optimism that the returning chief executive will follow through on his September pledge, despite the fact that rescheduling was begun under the Joe Biden administration two years ago.
In point of fact, there had been concern until Trump’s September announcement that he could decide to cancel rescheduling altogether if he won reelection, since the process is under the purview of the U.S. Department of Justice. Theoretically, there’s nothing binding Trump – or whomever he appoints as the new attorney general – from calling off the process entirely, since it won’t be finished until sometime next year, after Trump takes office.
“The cannabis community has every reason to be optimistic with President Trump returning to the White House. He has endorsed the SAFE Banking Act and reclassification of cannabis,” the U.S. Cannabis Council said in a statement on Wednesday. “We look forward to working with his administration to advance meaningful federal reform.”
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