Elizabeth Warren Pushes Trump To End Federal Marijuana Criminalization After Elon Musk’s ‘Failures’ To Stop Wasteful Spending With DOGE

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) is calling out President Donald Trump over his administration’s “failures” to “identify and eliminate waste” in federal government spending, while recommending a series of ways he could cut costs—including ending marijuana criminalization.

In a letter sent to Trump on Wednesday, Warren and Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-NM) said that, as Elon Musk departs the administration following a public feud over a budget reconciliation bill, they wanted to share a plan to “eliminate $2 trillion in wasteful government spending without incurring harm on essential government programs that lower costs for millions of Americans.”

In January, Warren sent a similar letter to Musk, who was helming the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) at the time. He “ignored these recommendations—but you could choose to reverse course, abandon Mr. Musk’s inefficient and harmful DOGE actions, and instead carefully review and implement our policy proposals,” the lawmakers said.

Among their recommendations is a proposal to reduce spending by ending “unnecessary federal arrests and detention programs.”

“The government spends billions of dollars each year on unnecessary federal enforcement actions and detention, like costly marijuana arrests despite the fact that almost half of states have legalized recreational marijuana, imprisoning elderly and terminally ill patients who pose little risk to public safety, and incarcerating people for minor technical violations of probation and parole,” they said. “By ending these practices, the government could save billions of dollars.”

“It is time to eliminate the real waste, fraud, and abuse in government spending, rather than ravaging programs that keep Americans safe, secure, and healthy just to pay for tax cuts for billionaires and large corporations,” the letter says. “You should learn from Elon Musk and DOGE’s mistakes, end your attacks on critical federal programs, and instead act on these recommendations.”

In her previous letter to Musk, Warren cited reporting from Marijuana Moment and other outlets on the Drug Enforcement Administration’s (DEA) ongoing cannabis seizures, with the agency reporting that it eradicated more than 5.7 million marijuana plants in 2022, for example.

However, DEA has faced more recent criticism after failing to release updated annual data on marijuana-related arrests and seizures in 2024 as it has done in prior years.

Warren has been proactive in her outreach to the Trump administration, seeking clarification and making policy recommendations as cabinet nominees are in the confirmation process.

In January, the senator pressed Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—Trump’s since-confirmed choice to lead the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)—to reiterate his position on marijuana legalization amid the ongoing effort to federally reschedule cannabis.

Meanwhile, rather than decriminalize cannabis to lower costs, Congress has sent a bill to Trump’s desk that would permanently ban analogues of fentanyl—though it also contains provisions that one GOP lawmaker said would remove barriers to conducting research into the risks and benefits of marijuana and other Schedule I drugs.

A Democratic congresswoman separately said this week that the Trump administration’s push to make states pay a larger share for public services such as food assistance and health care amid his efforts to cut federal spending might ultimately “push them in the direction of legalizing marijuana” so they can offset those costs with cannabis tax revenue.

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