CatholicVote launches campaign against Trump marijuana rescheduling plan

CatholicVote has launched a campaign to urge President Donald Trump to reject a potential move to loosen restrictions on marijuana.

“The repurposing of marijuana, when it has not undergone FDA approval or long-term safety studies, will falsely signal that it is safe and medically proven,” Kelsey Reinhardt, president and CEO of CatholicVote, said in a statement to Fox News Digital.

“This is exactly how America sleepwalked into the tobacco crisis: first confirm, then calculate,” Reinhardt added. “We must not repeat this mistake. This is not about nostalgia or personal freedom; this is about protecting public health, children and communities from a drug that is already causing serious harm. States like Massachusetts are now trying to reduce recreational use. It’s only the $32 billion for-profit marijuana industry that wants the president to further ease restrictions. They are not interested in making life better for Americans, they are only interested in growing their customer base and turning our children into lifelong users of this highly addictive drug.”

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on MondayTrump has said he is considering reclassifying marijuana as a less dangerous drug.

Marijuana is currently a Schedule I controlled substance under the Controlled Substances Act, which classifies it as a highly abused drug with no accepted medical use.

Trump is considering reclassifying marijuana as a Schedule III drug, which would regulate it as a drug with only moderate to low potential for abuse and for which medical treatment is permissible, but with moderate to high potential for psychological dependence. Recreational use would remain illegal.

Trump said he was “considering” making marijuana a Schedule III drug, saying: “A lot of people want to see that, the reclassification, because it leads to a tremendous amount of research that can’t be done unless you reclassify it.”

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Marijuana is currently a Schedule I controlled substance under the Controlled Substances Act, which classifies it as a highly abused drug with no accepted medical use. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

CatholicVote on Wednesday started a campaign To persuade Trump to keep marijuana in Schedule I.

The campaign’s page calls marijuana a “dangerous” gateway drug and says many users can become addicted. It may cause an increase in the rates of psychosis, schizophrenia, anxiety and suicidal thoughts, and these teenage brain injurydecreased IQ and stunted emotional development.

“Today’s marijuana is much more potent than in the past, and its long-term effects are still emerging,” the CatholicVote campaign page reads. “Rescheduling now would mean repeating Big Tobacco’s tragic history of first approving, then paying. People don’t just get high. They get addicted, they get hospitalized, and they get harmed. Tell President Trump to stop rescheduling marijuana.”

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The campaign page calls marijuana a “dangerous” gateway drug, claiming that around 1 in 3 users become addicted, that it can produce increased rates of psychosis, schizophrenia, anxiety and suicidal thoughts, and that it is responsible for brain damage, declining IQ and stunted emotional development in young people. (iStock)

The page asks users to email Trump and ask him to reconsider his effort to ease marijuana restrictions.

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