Trump has chosen J.D. Vance to be his running mate. Vance is very new to public office, having just got elected to the Senate in 2022. But that’s probably exactly what is alluring to Trump in the first place: he can still be considered an outsider.
Vance wrote a book titled “Hillbilly Elegy” back in 2016, and after Trump was elected, this became a must-read for democrats who wanted to understand how so many white and poor communities were overlooked during the election. At the time, Vance was a staunch “never-trumper,” which has certainly changed over the years. For his campaign in 2022, his enthusiastic support for Trump helped win him the Senate seat after Trump endorsed him.
So as someone who maybe began his career somewhere in the center before drifted more and more right in his views, where does leave his thoughts on cannabis?
On record, he pretty much aligns directly with Trump, in that states should be able to create their own marijuana regulations. However, he comes down a little harder on enforcement and doesn’t seem to like the plant.
As a part of the Banking Committee, Vance voted against the SAFER banking act despite its bipartisan majority. His belief was that it would make it simpler for operators to distribute other drugs like fentanyl as well.
Here’s what he told AskAPol in May of this year:
“My view on weed is, like, we have to strike a balance between, you don’t want people thrown in prison for having a dime bag,” he said. “That mercifully doesn’t happen most of the time in this country.”
“I also think we haven’t quite figured out how this new regime coexists with not polluting our public spaces, right? This is, like, a big frustration that I have. You take your kids downtown Cincinnati to go to a restaurant, and you walk by, like, five people who are stoned. It smells terrible. Like, I don’t want that. I also don’t want people getting arrested for, y’know, having a dime bag. And I think we have to strike that balance a little bit better.”
“If we’re going to go into this more open regime, people have to actually take some responsibility and not do it around, y’know, six year old kids.”
So he’s certainly not a fan of marijuana, but he wouldn’t change the direction of Trump’s stance should they get into the White House. It’ll be a hands off approach with harsher penalties for the illicit market.
Read the original article at Marijuana Moment.
