Donald Trump Removes Marijuana Opposition from White House Website

Carl Wellstone 

Much has been made about Donald Trump’s decisions to alter the White House’s website, notably removing LGBTQ rights, civil rights and climate change from the list of presidential issues.

Most alarming to the cannabis community may be the fact that the Trump Administration now touts “Standing Up For Our Law Enforcement Community,” especially if the commitment to “law and order” leads to more marijuana arrests, even in states where voters have deemed it legal.

As Marijuana Majority’s Tom Angell noted on his Facebook page the Trump White House also deleted the Office of National Drug Control Policy, which included the Obama Administration’s opposition to marijuana legalization.

Using the Wayback Machine, you can see that the Obama Administration’s ONDCP page:

And Donald Trump’s ONDCP page, on his inauguration day, looks like this:

Does this mean that Donald Trump is going to change the federal government’s opposition to marijuana legalization and call for an end to cannabis prohibition? Unfortunately, not likely.

There are definite warning signs about the Trump Administration, notably his nomination of Jeff Sessions for attorney general, so the best that we can really expect is a continuation of the Obama Administration’s policy of leaving states alone to make their own marijuana policy. As Tom Angell mentioned, these website changes are likely just “a broader transition reset and aren’t themselves any kind of policy indication.”

But, since I had several pro-Trump legalization supporters touting his business acumen as an example of why he’ll ultimately be good on marijuana policy, I’m gonna hold out hope that President Trump will channel The Donald that called for the legalization of all drugs back in the early 1990s. Hey, a boy can dream, right?