Former President Donald Trump says medical marijuana has been “absolutely amazing” for patients, and that a Florida initiative to more broadly legalize cannabis for recreational use will be on the November ballot is “going to be very good” for the state after it passes, which he expects to happen.

The 2024 Republican nominee said during an interview on Lex Fridman’s podcast that was released on Tuesday that “medical marijuana has been amazing,” adding that he’s “had friends and I’ve had others and doctors telling me that it’s been absolutely amazing, the medical marijuana.”

Trump referenced a recent social media post he made about Florida’s Amendment 3 ballot initiative, where he gave tacit support for the proposal. “We can live with the marijuana,” he said.

“It’s got to be a certain age [to purchase],” he said. “It’s got to be done in a very concerted, lawful way. And the way they’re doing it in Florida, I think is going to be actually good. It’s going to be very good, but it’s got to be done in a good way. It’s got to be done in a clean way.”

He added that his campaign will be putting out an additional, “more specific” statement detailing his cannabis position within the next week.

Trump drew a contrast between the Florida proposal and New York’s legalization law, reiterating that he doesn’t feel people should be able to smoke in public. “You’ve got to have a system where there’s control,” he said, again seemingly endorsing the concept of legalization over prohibition.

“You take a look at the numbers, it’s been very hard to beat it,” Trump said, referencing polling for marijuana legalization ballot measures. “So I think it’ll generally pass, but you want to do it in a safe way.”

This comes days after Trump took to his social media company Truth Social, where he posted on Saturday that voters in his home state of Florida will approve the marijuana legalization initiative, arguing that “someone should not be a criminal in Florida, when this is legal in so many other States.”

Trump added that current policy ruins lives, wastes taxpayer dollars and puts people at risk of dying from cannabis tainted with fentanyl.

Speaking with Fridman, the former president was also asked about psychedelics. The host explained that he recently tried ayahuasca and “there’s a lot of people that speak to sort of the health benefits and the spiritual benefits of these different psychedelics.” He added that military veterans in particular have benefited from the substances in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Last month at a press conference, Trump told a reporter that he’s starting to “agree a lot more” that people should not be criminalized over marijuana given that it’s “being legalized all over the country”—adding that he would “fairly soon” reveal his position on the Florida ballot measure.

“As we legalize it, I start to agree a lot more because, you know, it’s being legalized all over the country,” Trump said at the time. “Florida has something coming up. I’ll be making a statement about that fairly soon.”

A reporter had asked about the Biden-Harris administration push to reschedule cannabis, as well as Vice President Kamala Harris, the 2024 Democratic presidential nominee, stating repeatedly that people should not be incarcerated over simple cannabis offenses.

“As we legalize it throughout the country—whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing—it’s awfully hard to have people all over the jails that are in jail right now for something that’s legal,” Trump replied. “So I think obviously there’s a lot of sentiment to doing that.”

Following Trump’s recent announcement of support for the Florida cannabis legalization ballot measure, the campaign for Harris is working to remind voters that while in office, Trump “took marijuana reform backwards.”

In a memo from a senior campaign spokesperson, the Harris campaign accused Trump of “brazen flip flops” on cannabis. The Democratic campaign says it’s one of the Republican former president’s “several bewildering ‘policy proposals’ that deserve real scrutiny.”

“On issue after issue, Trump is saying one thing after having done another,” the memo says. “For example: As a candidate in 2024, he suggests he is for decriminalizing marijuana – but as President, his own Justice Department cracked down on marijuana offenses.”

The claim appears to be a reference to the move by Trump-era Attorney General Jeff Sessions to rescind the so-called Cole memo, which provided guidance to federal prosecutors not to interfere with operations of well regulated state marijuana systems.

Meanwhile, longtime ally and GOP political operative Roger Stone, who is also a Florida resident and supports the legalization proposal, separately told Marijuana Moment that if Trump did ultimately endorse the measure it would “guarantee victory.”

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC), who is sponsoring a bill to federally legalize marijuana called the States Reform Act, separately said that while she hopes Trump will back the Biden administration’s rescheduling move, she also said part of the reason Republicans in Congress have declined to embrace marijuana policy change is because they’re “afraid of it.”

Trump also recently went after Harris over her prosecutorial record on marijuana, claiming that she put “thousands and thousands of Black people in jail” for cannabis offenses—but the full record of her time in office is more nuanced.

Trump’s line of attack, while misleading, was nonetheless notable in the sense that the GOP presidential nominee implied that he disagrees with criminalizing people over marijuana and is moving to leverage the idea that Harris played a role in racially disproportionate mass incarceration.

Meanwhile, Harris selected Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) as her running mate, choosing a candidate who backed numerous cannabis reform measures in Congress, called for an end to prohibition when he was running for governor and then signed a comprehensive legalization bill into law in 2023.

As president, Trump largely stayed true to his position that marijuana laws should be handled at the state-level, with no major crackdown on cannabis programs as some feared after then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions rescinded the Obama era federal enforcement guidance. In fact, Trump criticized the top DOJ official and suggested the move should be reversed.

While he was largely silent on the issue of legalization, he did tentatively endorse a bipartisan bill to codify federal policy respecting states’ rights to legalize.

That said, on several occasions he released signing statements on spending legislation stipulating that he reserved the right to ignore a long-standing rider that prohibits the Justice Department from using its funds to interfere with state-legal medical marijuana programs.

Before President Joe Biden bowed out of the race, his campaign made much of the president’s mass cannabis pardons and rescheduling push, drawing a contrast with the Trump administration’s record. The Harris campaign so far has not spoken to that particular issue, and the nominee has yet to publicly discuss marijuana policy issues since her own campaign launched.

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Back in Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has doubled down on his opposition campaign against the marijuana legalization initiative that will appear on the state’s November ballot.

Meanwhile, a Democratic congresswoman who recently said she was on the fence about whether she’d vote for the legalization ballot initiative this November has officially given the measure her endorsement.

There’s been a mixed bag of feedback on Amendment 3 from members of Florida’s congressional delegation.

One pro-legalization GOP congressman, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), recently said he intends to vote against it, strictly because he feels the reform should be enacted statutorily, rather than as a constitutional amendment that would prove more challenging to amend.

On the other hand, Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL), co-chair of the Congressional Cannabis Caucus, predicted earlier this year that the measure will pass.

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