Republicans oppose state-legal weed clampdown
Republicans don’t want the federal government to crack down on state-legal weed markets.
Just over three-quarters of self-identified Republicans said the government shouldn’t fight state medical or adult-use legalization backed by voters and instead should remove any obstacles facing those markets, according to a new national poll commissioned by the industry group National Cannabis Roundtable.
Just 17 percent of respondents disagreed that the federal government should take a hands-off approach to state-legal markets, while 7 percent offered no opinion on the issue.
Similarly, the poll found that 73 percent of respondents believe businesses operating in state-legal markets should have the same rights as other legal businesses, while 21 percent disagreed with that statement.
“The perceived notion that Republican voters are hostile to cannabis is wrong,” Tony Fabrizio, whose firm Fabrizio, Lee & Associates conducted the poll, said in an interview. “In fact, these Republican voters believe that if it's legal in a state, then … the feds should get out of the way and let the state handle it.”
Key context: During the Obama administration, the Justice Department enacted the Cole Memo, which advised prosecutors not to prioritize enforcing federal marijuana offenses in states with legal, regulated markets.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions repealed that memo during the Trump administration, but there was no resulting crackdown on state-legal markets. There’s been no similar guidance issued by the Biden administration, but Attorney General Merrick Garland has indicated that going after state-legal markets would be a poor use of agency resources.
In addition, since 2015, Congress has enacted appropriations riders prohibiting the Justice Department from spending funds to crack down on state medical marijuana markets.
Legalization divide: Republicans back medical marijuana legalization by a 73-20 margin, according to the poll conducted by Fabrizio's firm, which also has polled for Donald Trump. But they’re evenly split on whether they support marijuana legalization for anyone at least 21 years old: 47 percent said they favor adult-use legalization, while 46 percent expressed opposition. That aligns with other recent polls that have found Republicans divided on the issue.
The most recent Gallup poll on the issue found that 50 percent of Republicans favor legalization, with 49 percent opposed.
“Twenty years ago, you couldn't get a majority of Republicans that supported medical cannabis. Now, it's overwhelmingly supportive,” Fabrizio said, citing the opioid addiction epidemic and the desire for alternative treatments as one of the reasons for the shift. “And now, you've got Republicans split on the notion of adult use cannabis. So both of those are huge shifts over the last decade or more.”
Access to financial services: Asked about specific restrictions facing cannabis companies, poll respondents expressed support for lifting those barriers.
Roughly two-thirds of respondents indicated that Congress should change federal law to give cannabis companies access to banking services, while 21 percent expressed opposition to that position. In addition, 51 percent agreed that cannabis companies should be allowed to be listed on U.S. stock exchanges, compared to 33 percent who expressed opposition.
The SAFE Banking Act would make it easier for cannabis companies to access banking services. The measure enjoys bipartisan support and has repeatedly passed the House either as a standalone bill or as part of broader package, but has gone nowhere in the Senate.
The latest discussions on Capitol Hill center on attempting to pair the banking bill with some criminal justice proposals that could mollify progressive Democrats without alienating Republicans.
Methodology: The poll surveyed 1,000 self-identified Republicans nationwide. It was conducted Aug. 15 to 21 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.9 percentage points.
