Donald Trump has come out in support for a proposed constitutional amendment that would legalize recreational marijuana in Florida, the state in which he resides.
In a Truth Social post on Saturday, Trump said “personal amounts of marijuana will be legalized for adults” with Florida’s amendment 3, “whether people like it or not”.
The former US president said “someone should not be a criminal in Florida, when this is legal in so many other States”. He added: “We do not need to ruin lives & waste Taxpayer Dollars arresting adults with personal amounts of it on them.”
Trump, as a resident Floridian, will be able to cast a vote on the state’s amendment 3 in November, which would allow adults over 21 to legally buy and use marijuana without a medical card.
Under the proposed amendment, growing marijuana independently would still be illegal, and individuals could possess no more than three ounces for personal use.
Trump’s support contrasts with Florida’s governor and fellow Republican, Ron DeSantis, who has been a vocal opponent of the ballot measure. “This is bad policy and even worse constitutional law,” DeSantis wrote in an X post this week.
DeSantis has said he opposes amendment 3 because of the smell, and has claimed, without evidence, that people would be “able to bring 20 joints to an elementary school”.
In his social media post, Trump called on the state’s lawmakers to implement regulations that would ban the use of marijuana in public spaces “so we do not smell marijuana everywhere we go”.
But advocates of marijuana legalization argue that Republican lawmakers are exaggerating the scale of the smell problem in order to support policies banning the public use of cannabis, which has become increasingly accepted by Americans for years.
Most US states now allow medical or recreational consumption of marijuana. In recent years, 24 states and the District of Columbia have legalized the recreational use of cannabis – and 14 others have approved it for medical use, according to the Pew Research Center.
The Florida amendment requires 60% voter support to pass. And public opinion polls show that a majority of Florida voters favor the measure.
Voters in South Dakota and North Dakota will also decide ballot initiatives proposing to legalize recreational marijuana in the November election.
Trump’s marijuana-related Truth Social post on Saturday came amid polls which generally show that he is trailing the vice-president and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris in key battleground states which could decide the White House race between them.
