“In Florida,” former and possibly future US president Donald Trump writes on Truth Social, “like so many other States that have already given their approval, personal amounts of marijuana will be legalized for adults with Amendment 3. Whether people like it or not, this will happen through the approval of the Voters, so it should be done correctly.”

I signed a petition to put Amendment 3 on the ballot — in fact, I’ve been signing similar petitions on the subject for years — and intend to vote for it in November. I expect it to pass. I hope it passes.  I’m thankful to Trump for kinda sorta endorsing it.  But that kinda sorta endorsement really highlights two aspects of the issue for me.

The first aspect is Trump’s call for it to be done “correctly,” by which he means “prohibit the use of it in public spaces, so we do not smell marijuana everywhere we go.”

I suppose it’s possible that there’s something special about Palm Beach. I’ve never been there. I live near Gainesville, Florida, and when in town I already smell marijuana everywhere I go.

I’ve also sampled the scents of Tallahassee, Jacksonville, St. Augustine, Orlando, Tampa, and numerous smaller Florida urbs. In Florida, if you exit your personal vehicle in any area boasting a population density greater than Greenland’s, you’re likely to smell cannabis.

Which leads me to the second interesting aspect of Amendment 3:

It’s nice, but not really necessary. Floridians who want to use weed already use weed. They use weed in private. They use weed in public. They’ll continue to do so. They don’t need your approval or your permission.

Would it be NICE to just have the stuff fully legal, at least to the extent that those who use it don’t find themselves at (minimal, but real) risk of arrest for personal possession? Yes, it would.

Would the failure of Amendment 3 reduce marijuana use in Florida? No, it wouldn’t.

This shouldn’t surprise you. Marijuana is informally referred to as “weed” for a reason: It grows pretty much everywhere in the wild. It isn’t difficult to grow at home, either. Human beings have used it and valued it both medically and recreationally for as long human beings have existed.

State and federal governments have spent more than a century trying to eliminate Americans’ use of cannabis. More — lots more — Americans use it now than before the war on weed began. They’ll continue to do so. Period.

Whether you use the stuff or not, legalizing it makes your life better in many ways — for example, you don’t have to pay for as many cops or as many prison cells.

Don’t like the smell? Too bad. Get used to it.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter:@thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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