A prominent marijuana prohibitionist group is rolling out a six-figure ad campaign directed at President Donald Trump, urging him not to move forward with cannabis rescheduling.
Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM) Action is behind three 30-second TV ads that claim rescheduling would empower Chinese cartels, normalize marijuana use and undermine the administration’s “Make America Healthy” agenda.
The ads will air on Fox News and Fox Business Network—increasing the likelihood that they could catch Trump’s attention.
“Rescheduling is a cartel tax cut,” Kevin Sabet, president of SAM, said in a press release. “By removing marijuana from the reach of Section 280E, Washington would hand [Chinese Community Party]-backed cartels and Big Marijuana a taxpayer-subsidized path to dominate the market and target our kids, while giving Big Marijuana major tax breaks, further fueling an addiction-for-profit industry that targets our children and undermines federal law.”
The reference to Section 280E is about an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) code that has long precluded state-licensed cannabis businesses from taking federal tax deductions while marijuana remains a Schedule I drug. If the Biden administration-initiated process to moving cannabis to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) is completed, those businesses would be free to take those deductions.
Read transcripts of those ads at Marijuana Moment
