The White House is running a secret anti-weed committee
The Trump administration has launched a sneak attack on Americans' growing support for marijuana.
To combat what White House meeting records call America's "partial, one-sided, and inaccurate" narrative in favor of marijuana, federal agencies were asked to compile "negative trends" about the drug and its "threats," BuzzFeed News has learned. It's all being done under the Marijuana Policy Coordination Committee, a secretive collective commandeering 14 federal agencies and the Drug Enforcement Agency to build an anti-weed rhetoric.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
The committee instead seems to echo Attorney General Jeff Sessions' war-on-drugs rhetoric, BuzzFeed News points out. A July 27 committee meeting summary cited "an urgent need to message the facts about the negative impacts of marijuana use, production, and trafficking on national health, safety, and security." So the committee ordered agencies to deliver "the most significant data demonstrating negative trends" regarding weed for a briefing with Trump "on marijuana threats," the summary said. The goal is to "turn the tide on increasing marijuana use," per the meeting summary.
The committee only explicitly indicated that it was looking for negative information on marijuana use and laws, BuzzFeed News' analysis revealed. A White House response to the story said the committee is part of the administration's "internal, deliberative process" to "ensure consistency with the president's agenda."
Read more about the White House's war on green at BuzzFeed News.
-
Political cartoons for January 11Cartoons Sunday’s political cartoons include green energy, a simple plan, and more
-
The launch of the world’s first weight-loss pillSpeed Read Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly have been racing to release the first GLP-1 pill
-
Six sensational hotels to discover in 2026The Week Recommends From a rainforest lodge to a fashionable address in Manhattan – here are six hotels that travel journalists recommend for this year
-
The billionaires’ wealth tax: a catastrophe for California?Talking Point Peter Thiel and Larry Page preparing to change state residency
-
Hegseth moves to demote Sen. Kelly over videospeed read Retired Navy fighter pilot Mark Kelly appeared in a video reminding military service members that they can ‘refuse illegal orders’
-
Trump says US ‘in charge’ of Venezuela after Maduro grabSpeed Read The American president claims the US will ‘run’ Venezuela for an unspecified amount of time, contradicting a statement from Secretary of State Marco Rubio
-
Bari Weiss’ ‘60 Minutes’ scandal is about more than one reportIN THE SPOTLIGHT By blocking an approved segment on a controversial prison holding US deportees in El Salvador, the editor-in-chief of CBS News has become the main story
-
CBS pulls ‘60 Minutes’ report on Trump deporteesSpeed Read An investigation into the deportations of Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador’s notorious prison was scrapped
-
Trump administration posts sliver of Epstein filesSpeed Read Many of the Justice Department documents were heavily redacted, though new photos of both Donald Trump and Bill Clinton emerged
-
Trump HHS moves to end care for trans youthSpeed Read The administration is making sweeping proposals that would eliminate gender-affirming care for Americans under age 18
-
Jack Smith tells House of ‘proof’ of Trump’s crimesSpeed Read President Donald Trump ‘engaged in a criminal scheme to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election,’ hoarded classified documents and ‘repeatedly tried to obstruct justice’
