It might happen soon, but President Donald Trump will deliver on major marijuana reform, according to two cannabis industry figures with White House access.
Weldon Angelos, whom the president pardoned for a federal marijuana offense, and Trulieve Cannabis Corp. CEO Kim Rivers, who’s understood to have helped secure Trump’s endorsement for adult-use marijuana legalization in Florida last year, made the bold prediction this week at the Benzinga Cannabis Capital Conference in Chicago.
According to GreenState, Angelos and Rivers both encouraged cannabis industry players at the conference to be patient with marijuana reform’s slow but inevitable pace.
“We’re constantly meeting and hearing positive things,” said Angelos, who also enjoys close relationships with Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill.
“I think it’s going to take some time, but we’re going to get there.”
That echoes rhetoric heard during the Biden administration that often led to disappointment and frustration.
Several attempts to pass banking reform in Congress ultimately failed.
And though Biden in October 2022 initiated the potentially revolutionary marijuana rescheduling process, the push to reclassify the drug also stalled out, thanks in part to U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration delays.
Trump turned heads last September when he beat Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris to the punch by being the first to endorse both medical cannabis as well as Amendment 3 in Florida.
Rivers’ Trulieve was the chief financial backer of that initiative, to the tune of $150 million.
But Trump’s choices since then have sent a mixed message.
Terrance Cole, a former top agent and Trump’s choice to lead the DEA, evaded questions about marijuana rescheduling during his Senate confirmation hearings.
And in April, an unidentified White House staffer told CNN that the president wasn’t planning any action on rescheduling.
Still, Rivers and Angelos emphasized that Trump is closer to reform than he is prohibition, according to Connecticut-based GreenState.
“He has personal experience,” said Rivers, who attended the president’s inaugural in January and who claimed that Trump has friends who use medical marijuana.
“That’s the biggest change agent that we all have, and that has happened in the president’s sphere of influence.”
