Can Kid Rock or The Nuge Please Talk Sense To Trump About Cannabis?

Last week, President Trump posed for a series of surreal photos in the Oval Office. Seated at his desk and holding a pen and several pieces of presumably official paperwork, he was surrounded by Sarah Palin, Ted Nugent and Kid Rock. The response on social media was quick–and brutal–with one astute observer referring to the hillbilly summit as nothing less than a “white trash Mount Rushmore.” But missing amid all the hilarious hating on Trump and his entourage is the realization that the two men in cowboy hats in those photos are both avowed advocates of marijuana legalization.

 

Although he’s far more famous for his love of firearms and hatred of liberals, Ted “the Nuge” Nugent has long been an outspoken supporter of medical marijuana. Although he doesn’t endorse recreational pot use, Nugent condemned the war on medical marijuana as “anti-human and real reefer madness”  in a Daily Caller opinion piece.

 

Kid Rock, for his part, claims he doesn’t personally like weed because it makes him “dumb” (so that explains it?) But he also told the Guardian newspaper that not only marijuana but all drugs should be legalized. “[T]hey should legalise and tax everything: pot, cocaine, heroin,” Rock argued. “Has it not been proven that people will always find a way to get what they want?”

 

Given that two out of three of Trump’s top celebrity supporters support either medical marijuana or total drug legalization, would it be asking too much for them to talk some sense into Trump on these issues? After all, Jeff Sessions, Trump’s attorney general, has ideas about marijuana that are more in line with the 1980s-era “This is Your Brain On Drugs” public service announcements, or even the 1930s-era Reefer Madness movie itself than anything based in reality.

 

“I realize this may be an unfashionable belief in a time of growing tolerance of drug use,” Sessions said in a recent speech.” But too many lives are at stake to worry about being fashionable. I reject the idea that America will be a better place if marijuana is sold in every corner store. And I am astonished to hear people suggest that we can solve our heroin crisis by legalizing marijuana — so people can trade one life-wrecking dependency for another that’s only slightly less awful. Our nation needs to say clearly once again that using drugs will destroy your life.”

 

Sadly, the reverse is the case: Thanks to Trump, anyone with a functioning brain in America now automatically deserves a doctor’s note to smoke cannabis. Pot can work wonders for anxiety. Or as the Nuge would put it: “I say take a toke on the hippie weed if you need it.”