Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) filled in for Newsmax host Greg Kelly on Monday and used the opportunity to promote marijuana reform after President Joe Biden’s Department of Health proposed moving the drug from a Schedule I controlled substance to Schedule III.
“Perhaps the worst decision made by the US government in 1970 was to begin the war on drugs through the Controlled Substances Act,” declared Gaetz on the show:
Now in 1970, marijuana was scheduled as a Schedule I drug on par with heroin. Schedule II drugs were viewed as less dangerous, they include meth, cocaine, and astonishingly, fentanyl. You heard that right. To believe that marijuana is somehow more dangerous than fentanyl would require a hallucination more disorienting than a weekend with Charlie Sheen in a peyote den.
Gaetz — who has filled in for Newsmax hosts on a number of occasions — went on to introduce lawyer, Biden ally, and marijuana advocate John Morgan, who he noted had been nicknamed “the pot daddy” for his donations to marijuana initiatives and had “recently joined the president at a White House state dinner.”
Asked for his thoughts on rescheduling marijuana from a Schedule I to a Schedule III substance, Morgan told Gaetz, “I have been talking to the president about this before he was president. Every time I’ve seen him, I bring it up, and all I can say is it’s high time. Excuse the pun.”
Upon being questioned whether the move was sufficient or whether the Biden administration should take further action to decriminalize marijuana, Morgan said, “It’s a step in the right direction. It has to happen.”
“The danger is not marijuana,” Morgan argued. “The danger is the pharmaceutical industry and the liquor industry. Marijuana is nothing.”
Gaetz responded, “Well I totally concur with the assessment that marijuana reform is often blocked by Big Pharma because they want the opportunity to control it. My concern is that if we don’t go any further than moving marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III, that could potentially allow Big Pharma to control it.”
Watch above via Newsmax.
