{"id":1145,"date":"2026-07-25T10:40:21","date_gmt":"2026-07-25T10:40:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/relocationacrossamerica.com\/?p=1145"},"modified":"2026-07-25T10:40:21","modified_gmt":"2026-07-25T10:40:21","slug":"big-cannabis-has-cozied-up-to-the-gop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/relocationacrossamerica.com\/?p=1145","title":{"rendered":"Big cannabis has cozied up to the GOP"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Major cannabis companies have donated millions to PACs aligned with President Donald Trump, according to the most recent Federal Election Commission filings. But the donations are not just a symptom of an increasingly pro-marijuana administration; they\u2019re also indicative of an ongoing lobbying war between the marijuana, hemp and alcohol industries.<\/p>\n

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Over the past couple of months, four major marijuana companies \u2014 Verano, Curaleaf, Trulieve and Vision Management Services, a subsidiary of Green Thumb Industries \u2014 each gave $2.5 million to America First Agriculture Action Inc., a Trump-friendly super PAC. They weren\u2019t alone in their donations. Ascend Wellness and Arboretum Bidco, two additional major cannabis companies, also gave $500,000 and $1 million to the PAC. Trulieve gave another $250,000 to the Republican Jewish Coalition Victory Fund, a pro-Israel super PAC.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Taken together, these donations account for the vast majority of the $13 million that America First Agricultural Action Inc. has raised so far this cycle.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Charles Gantt, who serves as the treasurer for Trump\u2019s major super PAC, MAGA Inc., also serves as the America First Agriculture Action Inc.\u2019s treasurer. Though the industry\u2019s PAC is relatively new, filing its statement of organization in March, it\u2019s already released ads praising Trump\u2019s marijuana policy.<\/p>\n

\n

The pro-Trump (and pro-Republican) turn of major marijuana companies marks an odd twist of fate as some of the industry\u2019s biggest players are embracing a party that has been historically hostile to liberalized drug policies like marijuana legalization.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The pro-Trump (and pro-Republican) turn of major marijuana companies marks an odd twist of fate as some of the industry\u2019s biggest players are embracing a party that has been historically hostile to liberalized drug policies like marijuana legalization. Notably, it\u2019s also coming at a time when support for legalizing marijuana is sharply declining among Republican voters.<\/p>\n

The main divide in cannabis in the United States comes down to the legal distinction between hemp and marijuana. Though both products are cannabis and are scientifically considered the same plant, they are distinguished legally. Hemp refers to cannabis containing less than 0.3% THC \u2014 the plant\u2019s main active compound \u2014 by volume, whereas marijuana refers to cannabis with a higher THC concentration.<\/p>\n

This minor biological difference has major regulatory implications as marijuana remains federally illegal and hemp has become de facto legal thanks to a provision in the 2018 Farm Bill. Despite the similarity of the products,\u00a0 marijuana companies operating in states that have legalized the sale of marijuana face significantly higher regulatory and tax burdens than hemp companies.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The situation is further complicated because the Trump administration has moved to reclassify marijuana as a Schedule III drug, which would keep it illegal, but remove some red tape around research and taxes. Similarly, the psychoactive hemp market is facing an existential threat following a provision slipped into a bill to reopen the government following last year\u2019s government shutdown.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The modification would close what was essentially a loophole created by the 2018 farm bill, which has allowed for the sale of psychoactive hemp products. This provision, however, won\u2019t take effect until November, which has set off a flurry of activity in the recreational hemp industry to try and save their businesses, as well as proposed legislation that would keep hemp legal.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The alcohol industry also has a stake in both the legal status of hemp and marijuana. Many in the alcohol industry see their cannabis counterparts as competitors, even as other alcohol companies have themselves entered the cannabinoid seltzer market.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Joe Gerrity, the CEO of Crescent Canna, which sells hemp-infused seltzers, told Salon that from the hemp side of things, there\u2019s the perception that \u201cRepublicans are a lot stronger.\u201d This in part owes to the fact that hemp farmers often live in more GOP-leaning areas, but also because fewer red states have legalized marijuana.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe reality right now is [that] Congress isn\u2019t getting anything done and the Trump administration has shown a willingness to move otherwise stagnant issues forward,\u201d Gerrity said. \u201cThere\u2019s no doubt it\u2019s politically popular to embrace the cannabis industry from a party perspective, and frankly, it shocks me that we still haven\u2019t seen a Democrat come out of the fold in a leadership position wholly embracing marijuana and pro-cannabis legalization.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ryan Hunter, the chief revenue officer at Spherex, a company that sells cannabis infused vape cartridges and other products, said that the current political landscape is shaped not only by the regulatory tangle, but by two individuals: Teulieve CEO Kim Rivers, advocating for the marijuana industry, and Howard Kessler, who champions the hemp industry.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is how Trump operates,\u201d Hunter said. \u201cYou\u2019ve got to grease the palms \u2014 whatever metaphor you want to use \u2014 and um so here we are. It\u2019s not surprising to see these large amounts of money flowing into PACs that he\u2019s in favor of. It\u2019s just, unfortunately, how the game is played in this current era.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hunter also called the lobbying a \u201csign of maturity\u201d for the industry, which is a sentiment shared by other hemp and cannabis businesspeople interviewed by Salon. At the same time, he said, the fact that the same plant is treated legally differently in cases of recreational marijuana, marijuana grown at home, medical marijuana and hemp is a mess that needs to be cleaned up.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to rationalize this,\u201d Hunter said. \u201cThere\u2019s no valid reason for the hemp industry to exist. You know, the amount of business that\u2019s being done there, primarily around the beverages. I saw the other day that there were about 1.6 \u00a0million cases of intoxicating hemp beverages sold last year. When you compare it to the number of cases of beer, which is around 2.5 billion, it\u2019s de minimis.\u201d<\/p>\n

How regulatory changes happen, however, is a delicate issue. Josh Kesselman, Founder of RAW Rolling Papers, told Salon that \u201cif Washington gets this wrong, reform could end up favoring the players who spend the most on lobbying while leaving small farmers, independent operators and the people who built this movement behind.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis plant should not be handed over to cannabis oligarchs who profit at the expense of everyone beneath them,\u201d he said. \u201cAny real reform has to protect access, protect small businesses, support research and move us closer to full normalization, not create a system where the culture gets pushed aside and the benefits flow only to insiders, lobbyists and billionaires.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Morgan Fox, the political director at the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, said he doesn\u2019t see comprehensive reform that would bring all cannabis products under a single national regulatory framework in the immediate future.<\/p>\n

Fox noted that this sort of legislation already exists, it just doesn\u2019t have the support to pass. He attributed this in part to powerful prohibitionists, like gambling billionaire Miriam Adelson and the Sembler family, whose donations to conservative political causes dwarf those of either hemp or marijuana companies.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s certainly opposition from very, very powerful people within the Republican Party and within Congress that would make it very difficult to get any sort of legislation to the floor without severe pressure from the president,\u201d Fox said. \u201cI think that that\u2019s relatively unlikely, at least in the near term, unless there\u2019s a chance that it could potentially help him in the midterm.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The hemp, marijuana and alcohol industries are all vying for the president\u2019s attention<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1144,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1471,1472,5,1473,1474,1475,221],"class_list":["post-1145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting","tag-big-marijuana","tag-cannabis","tag-donald-trump","tag-hemp","tag-marijuana","tag-marijuana-legalization","tag-republicans"],"yoast_head":"\nBig cannabis has cozied up to the GOP - Relocation Across America<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/relocationacrossamerica.com\/?p=1145\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Big cannabis has cozied up to the GOP - 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