Is he just being a NIMBY or is this the thin end of the wedge
He is obsessed with Washington looking like some sort of picture postcard and cannabis looks as though it gets in the way of that.
I’d suggest if he cleans out cannabis in Washington that is fuel for the fire at a local level for all the naysayers around the country to say.. well if he can do it so can we
All politics is local so is this a backdoor to rolling back adult use cannabis in the US?
Something worth thinking about
SAM are already onto it
Fact Sheet
President Donald J. Trump Works to Make Our Nation’s Capital Safe and Beautiful
MAKING WASHINGTON THE GREATEST CAPITAL CITY IN THE WORLD: Today, President Donald J. Trump signed an Executive Order to make Washington, D.C. what it should be—the pride of every American to whom it belongs.
- The Executive Order establishes a task force, officially known as the D.C. Safe and Beautiful Task Force, that will be comprised of members of key government agencies.
- The task force is directed to:
- Surge law enforcement officers in public areas and strictly enforce quality-of-life laws in public areas like drug use, unpermitted demonstrations, vandalism, and public intoxication.
- Maximize immigration enforcement to apprehend and deport dangerous illegal aliens, including monitoring D.C.’s cooperation with federal immigration authorities.
- Help D.C.’s forensic crime laboratory get accreditation.
- Provide assistance to the D.C. Police Department in recruiting and retaining officers and boosting capabilities.
- Keep dangerous criminals off the streets by strengthening pre-trial detention policies.
- Expedite concealed carry licenses for law-abiding citizens.
- Crack down on fare evasion and other crimes on the D.C. Metro system.
- The Executive Order will also create a program to beautify Washington, D.C.:
- This includes restoring and beautifying Federal buildings, monuments, statues, memorials, parks, and roadways, removing graffiti from commonly visited areas, and ensuring the cleanliness of public spaces and parks.
- The National Park Service will rapidly clear all homeless encampments and graffiti on federal lands.
AMERICANS DESERVE A BETTER CAPITAL THAN TODAY’S WASHINGTON: Our nation’s capital, the only city that belongs to all of us, must be a symbol of pride for the American people and a safe location for public servants to do the people’s work. Today, because of failed policies, it’s not.
- Crime is near historic highs, yet D.C. police force numbers recently reached a half-century low.
- The left is touting modest decreases in D.C. crime in 2024, but they still represent a massive increase from earlier rates. In 2023, violent crime rose by 39 percent. Property crime rose by 24 percent.
- This mirrors the spin they tried to put on “decreases” in the rate of inflation in recent years. Inflation is still up—and so is crime. And Americans are smart enough to notice.
- For example, 2023 saw the highest number of homicides in the District since 1997.
- The D.C. Metro Police Department needs at least 4,000 officers, yet has fewer than 3,500.
- D.C.’s failed policies opened the door to disorder—and criminals noticed. Washington, DC:
- Abandoned traditional pre-trial detention and effectively replaced it with ‘catch-and-release.’
-
Decriminalized marijuana.
- Lets rioters run loose even if they vandalize property and assault police.
- In 2022, the Biden U.S. Attorney for D.C. declined to prosecute 67% of arrested people who would have been tried in D.C. Superior Court.
- The vacuum in law enforcement has created an environment that facilitates crime and blight, encourages homeless and vagrancy encampments, and jeopardizes public safety.
- The D.C. crime lab remains partially unaccredited, creating a bottleneck for investigations. Federal authorities will assist with capacity so forensic work can resume and accreditation can be regained.
PRESIDENT TRUMP KEEPS HIS PROMISES: President Trump is following through on his promise to restore Washington, D.C. to glory by making the nation’s capital safe and beautiful once again.
- On President Trump’s first return to Washington since leaving office in 2021, he lamented “the filth and the decay” that marred the nation’s capital in his absence.
-
President Trump later promised that his Administration would “take over the horribly run capital of our nation, Washington, D.C., and clean it up, renovate it, and rebuild our capital city so that it is no longer a nightmare of murder and crime, but rather it will become the most beautiful capital anywhere in the world.”
Marijuana Moment
President Donald Trump’s White House says the move to decriminalize marijuana in Washington, D.C. is an example of a “failed” policy that “opened the door to disorder.”
In a fact sheet about an executive order that Trump signed on Friday—which is broadly aimed at beautifying the District and making it more safe—the White House listed several local policies in the nation’s capital that it takes issue with, including cannabis reform. That’s despite the president’s previously stated support for a states’ rights approach to marijuana laws.
“D.C.’s failed policies opened the door to disorder—and criminals noticed,” it says, citing “marijuana decriminalization,” as well as the District’s decision to end pre-trial detentions and enforcement practices around rioters, as examples of such policies.
The executive order itself doesn’t mention marijuana specifically. But it says the directive will involve “deploying a more robust Federal law enforcement presence and coordinating with local law enforcement to facilitate the deployment of a more robust local law enforcement presence as appropriate in areas in or about” D.C., and that includes addressing “drug possession, sale, and use.”
With respect to the fact sheet circulated by the White House, cannabis possession and personal cultivation is legalized in D.C. under a voter-approved ballot initiative, though commercial sales of non-medical marijuana remain illegal (a policy referred to by some as “decriminalization”).
Because of a long-standing congressional rider that’s been annually renewed since that vote, the District hasn’t been able to use local funds to implement a system of regulated recreational cannabis sales, so officials have taken steps to expand the city’s existing medical marijuana program as a workaround.
During Trump’s first term, he maintained that D.C. rider to keep blocking cannabis sales in his budget requests, as did his successor, former President Joe Biden.
But as advocates and industry stakeholders have waited to see how the Trump administration will navigate cannabis policy issues during this second term—and whether the president will push for reforms such as rescheduling and banking access as he endorsed on the campaign trail—the fact that his White House’s first public mention of marijuana links decriminalization to disorder is hardly encouraging.
The prohibitionist group Smart Approaches to Marijuana cheered the White House’s messaging, adding that “Washington DC did not just decriminalize private marijuana use for adults—it’s opened the door to total legalization, which can be smelled on virtually every street today.”
This comes one day after former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL)—President Donald Trump’s first pick for U.S. attorney general this term before he withdrew from consideration—said in an op-ed that “meaningful” marijuana reform is “on the horizon” under the current administration, praising the president’s “leadership” in supporting rescheduling.
The former lawmaker’s column omits mention of the fact that former President Joe Biden initiated the rescheduling review that led federal agencies to recommend the reclassification. And while it’s true that, during his 2024 campaign, Trump endorsed the policy change in a social media post, he has not publicly discussed marijuana issues since taking office.
The current administrative rescheduling process is delayed, with a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) judge postponing hearings on the proposal near the end of Biden’s term amid complications related to selected witnesses. That included questions about whether DEA leadership actually supported the proposed rule despite the agency’s role as the “proponent” of the policy.
Trump’s selections for key administration positions also come with a a mixed bag of cannabis records.
For example, the president picked former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi (R) to run DOJ, and the Senate confirmed that choice. During her confirmation hearings, Bondi declined to say how she planned to navigate key marijuana policy issues. And as state attorney general, she opposed efforts to legalize medical cannabis.
Adding to the uncertainty around the fate of the rescheduling proposal, Trump’s nominee to lead DEA, Terrance Cole, has previously voiced concerns about the dangers of marijuana and linked its use to higher suicide risk among youth.
Stakeholders have been trying to leverage Trump’s stated support for rescheduling, appealing to him by framing the issue as a means to support veterans and patients in a way that they hope will motivate the president to advocate for the reform from the Oval Office. Regardless of how other officials in his administration feel, the thinking goes, a mandate from Trump would not go unheeded.
To that point, a marijuana industry-funded political action committee (PAC) is attacking Biden’s cannabis policy record as well as the nation of Canada, with new ads promoting sometimes misleading claims about the last administration while making the case that Trump can deliver on reform.
