He’s right that people shouldn’t go to prison for possessing small amounts, but Florida’s Amendment 3 would go much further.
In a Truth Social post on Saturday, Donald Trump appeared to back Amendment 3, a Florida ballot initiative that would legalize recreational marijuana. He broke with Gov. Ron DeSantis and other Sunshine State Republicans because, he wrote, “we do not need to ruin lives & waste Taxpayer Dollars arresting adults with personal amounts of it on them.”
Keeping people out of prison for possessing small quantities of pot is a noble goal. But focusing on that goal ignores the reality of what initiatives like Florida’s do: They make it easy to buy and sell a personally and socially harmful substance. That breeds the kind of disorder Mr. Trump is known for standing against. He shouldn’t fall for the arguments of legalizers to the contrary.
Continue reading the entire piece here at the Wall Street Journal (paywall)
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Charles Fain Lehman is a fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal.
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