“#StopThePot: Trump trolls launch a new misinformation campaign targeting marijuana supporters”
As explained in this intriguing post by The Washington Post’s Christopher Ingraham, an online group of supporters of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump now seek to discourage young pro-pot liberals from voting for Sec. Hillary Clinton by falsely attributing Reefer Madness-like memes to her campaign. Ingraham explains:
“It’s time to put an end to the marijuana crisis on campus,” the meme proclaims in vivid text superimposed on a shot of photogenic 20-somethings. “Vote Hillary and #StopThePot.” The bottom of the image is emblazoned with the Hillary Clinton campaign logo, noting that it was “paid for by Hillary for America.”
Other images bearing similar anti-pot messages have circulated on Twitter and Facebook in the past few days:
- “Donald Trump wants to decriminalize Marijuana. We know better. It’s time America has tougher Marijuana laws, Enforced on a federal level.”
- “No girl deserves to have her future ruined by marijuana. That’s why we’ll keep it off our streets for good.”
- “We will stand with Law Enforcement and take marijuana off the streets. Once and for all.”
- “Marijuana is not medicine. Vote Hillary and #StopThePot”
The images all bear the familiar Clinton campaign branding, but none were actually “Approved by Hillary for America.” Rather, they’re part of a concerted effort, launched by members of a pro-Trump Reddit community, to suppress support for Clinton among young, pot-friendly voters…
A moderator for r/the_donald confirmed that the group created the #StopThePot campaign. Another moderator said that “the mod team’s position is that we do not want any degree of association with the Washington Post and we have no comment for you regarding this or any other matter.”
As Tom Angell reported at marijuana.com, the recent Wikileaks dump of hacked Clinton emails reveal Clinton told Xerox’s chairman and CEO during a March 2014 Q & A that she was against marijuana legalization. This revelation appears to have inspired the Trump-supporting cabal’s scheme to convince young voters that she’ll be coming for their pot if she wins next Tuesday.
The Clinton campaign, of course, has not released anti-legalization ads; despite her 2014 comments, her current position on marijuana policy is relatively relaxed. As Ingraham observes:
The Clinton campaign has said that Hillary will reschedule marijuana from Schedule 1 of the Controlled Substances Act to Schedule 2, a slightly less-restrictive designation that could make it easier to research medical uses of the plant. “She will also ensure Colorado, and other states that have enacted marijuana laws, can continue to serve as laboratories of democracy,” the campaign said in a statement in August.
The Marijuana Policy Project, a group working to legalize marijuana nationwide, gave Clinton a B+ grade on marijuana policy earlier this year. By contrast, Republican candidate Donald Trump earned a C+. Trump, too, has said that marijuana should be a “state-by-state” issue, but he’s been more vociferous about concerns with Colorado’s marijuana industry, telling Fox News host Bill O’Reilly earlier this year that legal weed is “causing a lot of problems out there.”