The former head of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under then-President Bill Clinton is urging Florida voters to reject a marijuana legalization initiative that will appear on the November ballot, arguing that it would create a “new addiction-for-profit industry” in the state.
In an op-ed for The Miami Herald that was published on Thursday, Donna Shalala said that her experience in the Clinton administration, as well as her time in Congress and as a top university administrator, informs her opposition to Amendment 3.
She argued that after combating the tobacco industry for parts of her career, “today, we face a new threat: Big Marijuana.”
“The marijuana industry has taken a page out of Big Tobacco’s playbook by advertising high-potency, kid-friendly products,” she said. “To protect the next generation, I urge my fellow Floridians to reject corporate marijuana commercialization and join me in opposing Amendment 3.”
While Shalala recognized that many Floridians have “concerns” about the harms of criminalization, acknowledging that “drug laws have unfairly targeted Black and brown communities” for decades, she said the solution should be decriminalization, as opposed to adult-use legalization.
Amendment 3 “would enact an entirely different policy by fully legalizing commercial marijuana
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