A GOP senator says his opposition to marijuana reform—and his conviction that cannabis is a “gateway drug”—hasn’t changed even after President Donald Trump signed a rescheduling order.
Asked about the president’s directive to move marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) told Marijuana Moment that cannabis is a “gateway drug” and that his position is informed by the fact that his brother died from a drug overdose.
Scott said he does “understand medicinal marijuana,” which voters in his state legalized via a constitutional amendment at the ballot in 2016.
The senator, who previously served as Florida’s governor, also noted that a separate initiative to legalize recreational cannabis on the 2024 ballot failed to reached the 60 percent threshold needed to be enacted—though it did get majority support.
Pressed on Trump’s assertion that rescheduling cannabis would free up research and whether he’d support the policy change in that respect, Scott said simply: “Why don’t we just do the research?”
Scott was among a group of GOP lawmakers who sent a letter last month challenging the marijuana rescheduling push, urging the Trump administration to trash the policy proposal.
Ahead of a vote
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