Count Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas as perhaps the clearest conservative voice to date to hedge towards federal decriminalization of marijuana. But his views are still the exception rather than the rule among the leading voices of the Republican party.
“A prohibition on interstate use or cultivation of marijuana may no longer be necessary or proper to support the federal government's piecemeal approach,” Thomas wrote Monday.
"Federal policies of the past 16 years have greatly undermined its reasoning," he said. "The federal government's current approach is a half-in, half-out regime that simultaneously tolerates and forbids local use of marijuana.”
Thomas offered his views even as the Supreme Court declined to hear a case regarding tax breaks for marijuana-based businesses in states where cannabis has been legalized.
However, Supreme Court justices don’t make law, and if Thomas were serving on Capitol Hill, he’d still be deeply in the minority among his Republican contemporaries.
Even Republicans in Congress who represent states that have legalized marijuana have been reticent to back any sort of federal legalization, even when backing new laws that would aid cannabis-based businesses.
Related
Senator Steve Daines, a Republican from Montana, is acting as lead sponsor on the SAFE Banking Act, a measure that would aid the marijuana industry’s access to financial services. And yet, he opposes full federal legalization. “The people in Montana decided they want to have it legal in our state, and that's why I support the SAFE Banking Act as well — it’s the right thing to do — but I don't support federal legalization.”
Daines is in lockstep with the vast majority of GOP senators and representatives in Washington, meaning marijuana’s growing popularity in America – 91% approve of legal medical use, 60% of legal recreational use, according to PEW Research – has not necessarily translated to those positioned to act on the public’s desires.