February 7, 2025
Another anti-marijuana official is assuming a critical role in the Trump White House, with the Senate confirming a director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) who has called marijuana a “gateway drug” and pushed for the rollback of state-level cannabis reform.
The Senate on Thursday confirmed Russell Vought to lead OMB on a party-line vote of 53-47. For marijuana reform advocates, it marks another administrative setback, as Vought will be charged with key responsibilities that could impact cannabis policy, including presidential budget requests that have historically addressed marijuana issues.
He would also play a role in any future drug scheduling decisions—a function that’s all the more relevant given the ongoing marijuana rescheduling process.
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Vought, who also served in OMB during Trump’s first term, has made clear that he’s opposed to cannabis reform.
“We have a cultural complacency in the country as to whether it is good to be using drugs,” he said during an appearance on C-SPAN in 2022, calling marijuana “a gateway drug to other serious drugs.”
“[You] can’t go to a big city without being involved with this—the smell of it,” Vought said. “It is a serious problem and that extends to—there are calls to legalize cocaine. It is where the elite opinion is going.”
Watch the official discuss cannabis policy, starting around 24:58 into the video below:
Also in 2022, the official also directed a social media post at the governor of Virginia, arguing that the administration should be “rolling back marijuana legalization” that the legislature passed the prior year to simply allow for possession and home cultivation by adults.
“I don’t want these ‘tobacco’ huts popping up all over the place selling weed,” he said, adding that he finds it “funny how you never hear about the supremacy of federal law when it comes to legalizing weed.”
While OMB under the Biden administration already reviewed and cleared the Justice Department’s proposal to move marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), Vought’s ascent to lead the office under the new administration raises questions about how that ongoing process could be impacted.
At the very least, it suggests possible challenges if there are future scheduling proposals for cannabis or any other substances where advocates hope to see reform.
Another one of the top functions of OMB director is to prepare the presidential budget.
During Trump’s first term, his budgets proposed ending an existing policy that protects state medical marijuana programs from Justice Department interference.
The rider, which has been renewed in appropriations legislation every year since 2014, stipulates the the Justice Department can’t use its funds to prevent states or territories “from implementing their own laws that authorize the use, distribution, possession, or cultivation of medical marijuana.”
Trump’s budget also repeatedly called for maintaining an appropriations rider blocking Washington, D.C. from enacting a system of regulated cannabis sales. That was also the case under former President Joe Biden, much to advocates’ disappointment.
With Vought leading OMB again, given his record, it seems all the more unlikely that the budget will depart from that anti-cannabis status quo—unless Trump, who endorsed cannabis rescheduling and state-level legalization during his last campaign, proactively presses the issue as a priority within the administration.
The OMB director’s responsibilities also include generally supervising the implementation of the president’s priorities across federal agencies, coordinating with Congress on proposed legislation and their potential fiscal impact and more.
Industry stakeholders have closely followed the filling of Trump’s cabinet, which has seen officials with a mixed bag of drug policy records nominated or assume key positions.
For example, Trump’s pick for attorney general, former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi (R) declined to say how she plans to navigate key marijuana policy issues—including the ongoing rescheduling process and renewing federal enforcement guidance.
The official named to run the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) as acting administrator, Derek Maltz, subscribes to the “gateway drug” theory for marijuana and believes most people living in states that have legalized cannabis will continue to obtain it from illicit sources such as cartels due to high taxes in regulated markets.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s nominee to lead the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), says he will defer to DEA on marijuana rescheduling if confirmed. And he’d “like to review the data” that led to the health agency’s recommendation for the reform before he potentially embraces it—despite his previous, repeated calls for cannabis legalization.
Trump’s choice to serve as director of national intelligence (DNI), former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D/R-HI), said last week that past marijuana use should not disqualify a person from receiving a security clearance—but “ongoing” use of cannabis is a “more complex” eligibility consideration.
Elon Musk, chair of the Trump administration’s newly formed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), said recently that it’s a “great idea” to mandate drug testing of federal employees as he pushes to make massive cuts to government agencies and spending despite his own use of marijuana and other drugs.
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