Marijuana Moment: GOP Congressman Backs Effort To Roll Back Marijuana Legalization In Arizona—But Says Trump Holds ‘Power’ With Rescheduling Push

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A GOP congressional lawmaker says he’d like to see his state of Arizona roll back its voter-approved marijuana legalization law with an initiative that could be on the November ballot—but he acknowledged that President Donald Trump’s recent federal rescheduling order could complicate that prohibitionist push.

Two Republican members of Arizona’s U.S. House delegation spoke with Marijuana Moment about the proposed ballot measure to eliminate commercial cannabis sales in the state, voicing opposition to legalization while recognizing that pending federal reform represents an obstacle for the anti-marijuana campaign.

Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ)—who was among a handful of GOP lawmakers who urged the Trump administration to reject rescheduling last year—said he would like to see voters approve an initiative to repeal the adult-use marijuana market in Arizona. That measure was filed with the secretary of state’s office last month, but it hasn’t been certified for ballot placement at this point.

“We need to really take a comprehensive look at cannabis all the way across the board. Science tries to commit one way or another to us, and we’re not getting the full background on it,” he said, adding that he still regards marijuana as a “gateway drug” to other illicit substances and arguing that the cannabis industry has “resisted every which way with the regulations.”

Asked about Trump’s recent executive order directing the attorney general to expeditiously finalize a rule moving cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), the congressman conceded that could hamper the state-level repeal effort.

“He’s got power,” Gosar said. “But a lot of us want to know who was it that actually turned his ear” to support rescheduling.

The lawmaker said the president has historically been receptive to his input, and he’d like to have a discussion about the rescheduling move—but that’s yet to materialize.

Another congressional Republican representing Arizona, Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ), also weighed in on the rescheduling push in an interview with Marijuana Moment last week.

While there’s a libertarian perspective on the issue he appreciates when it comes to letting adults make their own choices about personal marijuana use, he said the fiscal conservative in him says prohibition can help prevent the use of taxpayer dollars to deal with what he characterized as the consequences of cannabis use.

“I’ve always taken the position that you need to keep marijuana where it was because the social safety network is in place, causing taxpayers to have to fund rehabilitation for those things,” he said.

Biggs said people who use marijuana in legal states are more likely to rely on welfare benefits and have other “greater difficulties” that require social intervention. The congressman said he wasn’t familiar with the specific ballot initiative that’s under review by the state, but he signaled it’s something he’d generally be inclined to support.

Whether Trump’s rescheduling directive disrupts the anti-cannabis push in Arizona remains to be seen, he said, noting that it’s unclear “how serious the effort [to federally reschedule] really ever was.”

“The one argument that I was heard for that was, ‘Well, we want to be able to’—where it was scheduled, they couldn’t use it to test,” he said, referring to research barriers created by cannabis’s Schedule I status. “They wanted to use it for testing, which I’m like, ‘I get that, but you could have made an exception for experiments and testing.'”

“The drug legalization movement kind of fails on me because of the social social construct and how much it costs us,” Biggs, who has also opposed other incremental reforms such as allowing cannabis industry banking access, said.

In Arizona, the marijuana repeal initiative—titled the “Sensible Marijuana Policy Act for Arizona”—is being spearheaded by Sean Noble, president of the political strategy firm American Encore.

This year has seen a series of attempts to roll back adult-use legalization laws, with anti-cannabis activists in Maine recently approved for signature gathering for a similar ballot initiative and a Massachusetts campaign clearing an initial signature threshold for their version that will first put the issue to lawmakers before it potentially heads to the ballot.

The Arizona measure is distinct from those proposals in at least one significant policy area: It would not take away the rights of adults to grow up to six cannabis plants for personal use.

Also, it explicitly preserves components of the law aimed at expunging prior marijuana records.

Like the anti-cannabis proposals in other states, possession would remain lawful if voters chose to enact the initiative—and Arizona’s medical marijuana program would remain intact—but the commercial market for recreational cannabis that’s evolved since voters approved an adult-use legalization measure in 2020 would be quashed.

A findings section on the latest initiative states that “the proliferation of marijuana establishments and recreational marijuana sales in this state have produced unintended consequences and negative effects relating to the public health, safety, and welfare of Arizonans, including increased marijuana use among children, environmental concerns, increased demands for water resources, public nuisances, market instability, and illicit market activities.”

“Arizona’s legal marijuana sales have declined for two consecutive years, resulting in less tax revenue for this state, while some patients have relied on recreational use of marijuana instead of utilizing the benefits of this state’s medical marijuana program,” it says.

The initiative would also instruct the legislature to make conforming changes by amending existing statute as it relates to the commercial industry, including tax and advertising rules.

In order to make the ballot, the campaign will need to collect 255,949 valid signatures by July 2. If the proposal goes to voters and is approved, it would take effect in January 2028.

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Marijuana Moment is tracking hundreds of cannabis, psychedelics and drug policy bills in state legislatures and Congress this year. Patreon supporters pledging at least $25/month get access to our interactive maps, charts and hearing calendar so they don’t miss any developments.

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It remains to be seen if there will be an appetite for repeal among voters, as 60 percent of the electorate approved legalization at the ballot in 2020.

What’s more a poll from last year found majority support for medical cannabis legalization (86 percent), adult-use legalization (69 percent) and banking reform (78 percent).

The LCB contributed reporting from Washington, D.C.

Photo courtesy of Philip Steffan.

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