Marijuana companies take action to appease Donald Trump
Cannabis companies appear to be following the lead of other major corporate players and are attempting to appease the Trump administration with strategic hires and financial contributions.
Moves that observers say look calculated to curry favor with a transactional presidency include a million-dollar contribution from cannabis multistate operators to a Trump political action committee and California’s biggest cultivator hiring a former ICE official and cozying up with a White House ally following a deadly immigration raid last month.
Many of President Donald Trump’s critics say the White House has a boundless appetite to accept settlements, donations and other business transactions that amount to bribes.
Examples include Paramount paying $16 million to settle a lawsuit ahead of a pending merger, tech companies shelling out for the January inauguration – later receiving an “AI Action Plan” that lightly regulates artificial intelligence – and soccer organization FIFA opening a new office in Trump Tower ahead of next year’s World Cup tournament.
Observers say that this is the context in which to analyze:
“There’s a pretty obvious effort to try to curry favor with the administration,” said Hirsh Jain, a Los Angeles-based cannabis consultant and founder of Ananda Strategy.
“And that’s understandable,” he added. “It’s in their strategic interest.”
In Glass House’s case, the company is surely keen to avoid a repeat of the deadly July 10 ICE raids at its farms in southern California that saw more than 360 workers arrested.
And the marijuana sector is hopeful that Trump will follow through with a nearly year-old campaign promise and see cannabis’ status under federal law relaxed.
Considering the high stakes, with the White House able to make the call to reclassify cannabis under federal law – and decide the industry’s profitability – the marijuana industry may have more to risk than most other sectors.
On Monday, Glass House Brands made its first substantive public statement since ICE agents took more than 370 people, including more than a dozen children, into custody on July 10.
One worker also died from his injuries after falling from a roof, believed to be the first death stemming from a Trump administration immigration sweep.
Company representatives reached by phone on Tuesday declined to comment to MJBizDaily.
In its statement Monday, Glass House said nine company employees were taken into custody – with the rest, a number the company said it was “unable to verify,” employees of third-party farm labor contractors.
According to its statement, Glass House “terminated its relationship” with those labor suppliers.
Glass House also said it hired labor compliance company Guidepost Solutions, whose CEO, Julie Myers Wood, served as an assistant secretary of Homeland Security in the George W. Bush administration.
On top of that, Glass House said it signed a new labor peace agreement (LPA) with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.
California cannabis companies with 10 or more employees are required to secure such pacts with a “bona fide labor organization” or risk losing their licenses.
Observers note that Teamsters boss Sean O’Brien is a Trump ally.
O’Brien spoke at last summer’s Republican National Convention. He’s been a staunch supporter of the president’s economic policies, including the controversial and disruptive tariffs.
Teamsters officials did not respond to a request for comment from MJBizDaily.
“It is possible they went with the Teamsters since they’re more politically aligned with the Trump administration” than other unions in cannabis, said Lucas Zucker, the co-executive director of Central Coast Alliance for a Sustainable Economy (CAUSE), a Ventura, California-based workers’ advocacy organization.
Although the Teamsters and the United Food and Commercial Workers have both succeeded in organizing retail and indoor cultivation workers, neither have made major strides in organizing agricultural workers, he noted.
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Recent filings show the American Rights and Reform PAC reported a $1 million donation to Trump’s MAGA Inc. on March 26.
The transaction was first reported by Marijuana Moment.
Formerly known as Legalize America, American Rights and Reform’s funders include major marijuana multistate operators.
American Rights and Reform also reported paying:
According to records, American Rights and Reforms’ funders include:
Some cannabis executives have already made inroads to the White House.
Trulieve CEO Kim Rivers and Cresco CEO Charlie Bachtell both attended the Trump inauguration. And Rivers’ clout with Trump is understood to have led to the current president’s endorsement last fall of Florida legalization measure Amendment 3.
But every plant-touching firm in the country stands to benefit if the president or his new Drug Enforcement Administration chief Terrence Cole restarts the indefinitely paused marijuana rescheduling process.
And if a willingness to contribute to Trump’s pet causes helps compel White House action, that could be seen as just smart business.
“I think they know the game,” Jain said. “And they’re playing the game.”
Chris Roberts can be reached at chris.roberts@mjbizdaily.com.