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August 31, 2018 11:15 AM UTC

Gardner Hopes Like Hell Trump Doesn't Waffle On Weed

  • 34 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

FRIDAY UPDATE: Denver7’s Blair Miller:

U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet on Thursday sent a scathing letter to the White House’s Office of National Drug Control Policy urging the administration to reconsider its quest to gather negative data about legal marijuana programs, like the one in Colorado…

In his letter Thursday to James Carroll, the acting director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, Bennet said that Trump and his administration “has further eroded any credibility it had on the issue” and that the committee’s work would “further contribute to the Administration’s incoherent and backward-looking policy on marijuana enforcement and regulation.”

“At a time when we should be investing in objective and peer-reviewed scientific research on marijuana and the effects of legalization, the White House is instead using taxpayer money to spread a politically-driven narrative,” Bennet wrote. “What’s perhaps most unfortunate is that my state and others stand ready to work as partners with the federal government to gather the data and research necessary to ensure we are protecting public health and safety.”

Isn’t this what Sen. Cory Gardner, the “Trump whisperer” on all matters marijuana, should be saying?

—–

The Denver Post’s Anna Staver reports on a story that once again has Colorado’s multibillion-dollar marijuana industry facing the prospect of a big buzzkill:

Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Colorado, remains “confident” President Donald Trump will keep his promise not to meddle with state marijuana policy despite a report that the White House asked federal agencies to compile statistics and stories that paint the drug in a negative light.

“There seems to be a lot of interest in these storylines going around about how staff are trying to manipulate the president or to work around his firmly held policy positions – including the position he’s held since the campaign that marijuana policy is best left to the states …,” Gardner spokesman Alex Siciliano said.

The storyline comes from an article first published Wednesday by BuzzFeed News about The Marijuana Policy Coordination Committee. It reportedly asked 14 federal agencies and the Drug Enforcement Administration to provide “data demonstrating the most significant negative trends” about marijuana and how it might threaten the country. The reported purpose behind amassing all these data points was to brief the president.

Not to worry, says Sen. Gardner, who received a large helping of credit for “saving” Colorado’s marijuana industry from the threat of a crackdown by Attorney General Jeff Sessions after he interceded with Trump earlier this year. But setting aside the strange bedfellows of a conservative Republican championing the marijuana business, an act of political expediency that Gardner has reportedly had to explain to a great many unhappy fellow conservatives, there’s the larger problem that Gardner really has no control over the capricious decisionmaking of the Trump administration. Just like North Korea or any other matter on which Gardner has tried to run cover for Trump, he’s at the mercy of Trump’s inconsistency.

Which means that, well, sure. If Trump decides it’s in his best political interests to crack down on weed despite it all, you can expect Cory Gardner will be left flapping in the breeze without even a moment’s consideration. In that event, we can only hope that the voices who praised Gardner so loudly for protecting their reefer last time will realize that a counterintuitive friend is oftentimes a fair-weather friend, too.

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34 thoughts on “Gardner Hopes Like Hell Trump Doesn’t Waffle On Weed”

  1. “There seems to be a lot of interest in these storylines going around about how staff are trying to manipulate the president or to work around his firmly held policy positions…"

    Well, for a president that has no discernible "firmly" held policy positions, and who gets his intelligence briefings and policy recommendations from Fox & Friends, I'd say manipulating the president is easy peasy — just ask Vlad Putin, Kim Jong Un, or Stephen Miller.

  2. Marijuana is illegal and dangerous. Senator Gardner and I disagree on this issue. I hope Trump reconsiders the dangerous policy of allowing legalization to continue.

    4. What about Alcohol?   It can be dangerous if consumed in high amounts especially if you drive too.  Should it be illegal? That worked out well. Just like prohibition of marijuana.

              1. Michael, are you related to rabbits?  My paternal grandfather was 13 years old when the Civil War started.  His older brother, my great uncle Malon, did fight and lost an eye in the war.  Their father was 63 and thus too old to fight.  Probably explains why my older brother is still raising a teenager. wink

                1. Funny how life plays out!  My youngest sibling/brother's (he's only five years my junior, the youngest of four.  Do the math…my mom was a busy lady for a few years!) youngest daughter is the same age as my oldest grandchild.   

                  (Great-4) Grandpa Moore was 45 when he was killed at Cold Harbor in 1864.  His grandson, my (Great-2) grandfather (born in Arlington, VA) was the branch of the family that came west and homesteaded south of Paoli, CO (Phillips County) in 1889.  

                  1. Yep, we have a long history of big families thanks to relatively younger wives (farmers growing cheap labor).  My brother's teenager is 2 weeks older than his own granddaughter!

                    1. My mom was the second of thirteen and the oldest daughter.  Her three youngest siblings are younger than her older brother's first two sons! Grandpa had a dairy farm in Minnesota so they, like you mentioned, grew their own labor!  I have 58 first cousins on my moms side (that's the Irish Catholic side expressing itself – and finally answering your question: yes, I appear to be related to rabbits!) 

                    2. Family stuff can get weird. My oldest nephew (oldest brother's child) is a year and a bit older than my younger brother (second marriage for my late father) and we have a sister two years younger than he.

                    3. Ok, I promise, just one last convoluted family tale:  my maternal grandmother born in the late 1880's gave birth to 8 kids between 1905 and 1930.  With the last pregnancy however, the baby lived, but she didn't.

                      Her oldest daughter (25) was married, and so took the youngest 4 and raised them as her own.  A few years later, both she and her younger sister (my mother) had kids of their own, one of whom, my 79 year old first cousin living in Lakewood, thus had an instant set of older "brothers and sisters", and my actual brothers and sisters were her playmates in the 1940's and '50's.

                    4. I don't think I can beat that one, Davie! One of my great-great-grandfathers emigrated from Sweden and settled first in Story County, IA before heading west and landing permanently in Laird, CO.  He and his wife set sail from Europe with a young nanny for the three children they already had.  His wife died during childbirth with number four on the ship ride here (the child survived); he then married the young nanny (twenty years his junior) and they had three children together.  He's buried in the Holyoke cemetery; his wife, much younger, then went to live with the oldest son in Redding, CA and she's buried there. 

          2. Perhaps our argument should be more akin to heroin, which is prohibited nearly worldwide yet kills more people per year than all documented deaths by assault rifles combined. 

            And its cheaper than weed you buy at the store. 

            Marijuana and meth are both being used by anyone who wants to use it. The legality is irrelevant. 

                    1. Right.  Because laws are all about deterrence and not at all about punishment.

                      But, hey laws against murder don't prevent murder so let's decriminalize murder.

                2. I’d be fine with legalizing all drugs, because it has an overall public health benefit and has already been demonstrated to work as public policy. For the very same reasons I’d be fine with rounding up your assault rifles.

                  I’m not anti-gun, nor am I naive enough to think anyone’s going to round up your guns anytime soon in Merika, but I’d be fine with rounding them up and turning them into plows or wind turbine towers. Maybe a new Air Force One? 

                  Prohibition and gun laws are different animals. I’m confident you appreciate the difference. 

      1. …ya can't… I mean..
        there ar eno words or pictures.
        See God the founders wanted us to have guns… but we all know Reefer Madness is true.. and God … no one wants us to have mj.

  3. With all of the buzz over Jeff Sessions staying or leaving, I'm betting there won't be any moves on marijuana (going in EITHER direction) until after the midterms.

    One more silver lining to the incompetence of the amateur hour talent of the Trump Sad!-ministration.

      1. Or he could listen to his good friend Cory Gardner, and keep repeating the mantra "states decide." Or he could hear he endorsed legalization in the past, and insist he needs to act to keep a promise. If he was told the tax on marijuana would fund his wall, I'm betting he'd pick up his pen.

        Expecting ANYTHING from Trump and his Sad!-ministration is a guessing game.

  4. …we should be investing in objective and peer-reviewed scientific research… 

    I'm sure somebody in the West Wing spewed coffee all over their keyboard when they read THAT.

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