The Trump administration continues to claim the right to kill drug suspects on the high seas, yet another poll has strong support for marijuana legalization, and more.

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Marijuana Policy

Market Research Firm Poll Has Support for Legalization at a Solid 62 Percent. The market research and data analytic firm MRI-Simmons has released the MRI-Simmons' 2025 National Cannabis Study, which, in line with a decade-long list of polls, finds solid majority support for marijuana legalization.

The study, which employs "probabilistic and address-based sampling," according to the company website, had support for legalization at 62 percent, with 64 percent saying they expected pot to be legal in all 50 states within five years.

The public views legalization not as beneficial, with 70 percent agreeing it reduces illicit drug trafficking and 63 percent supporting erasing the criminal records of past marijuana offenses. And a majority (52 percent) of adults favored giving convicted pot-sellers priority for legal marijuana business licenses.

There was also strong support (67 percent) for allowing banks to serve legal pot businesses without penalty, and 59 percent said they would be more likely to vote for candidates who ran on legalization.

"For advertisers and media companies, this signals a growing opportunity to align with progressive values and tap into a politically engaged audience. Cannabis isn't just a product. It's a platform for change," MRI-Simmons noted.

Foreign Policy

DOJ Tries to Justify Blowing "Drug Boats" Out of the Water. The Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) has produced a classified legal opinion that seeks to make the case for the US military to conduct lethal strikes not just on Venezuelan "drug boats" but against a secret list of cartels and suspected drug traffickers, CNN reported Monday. The list of potential target organizations and individuals goes beyond those the administration has publicly identified as terrorist organizations.

The OLC opinion formed the foundation for the Defense Department's memo to Congress last week that argued the lethal boat attacks were legal because the US is in an "armed conflict" with the cartels and President Trump has determined that drug smugglers are "unlawful combatants." Although lawmakers have repeatedly asked DOJ and DoD for a copy of the OLC opinion, the agencies have not made it available.

Designating low-level drug smugglers as enemy combatants and giving the president the power to order their summary execution is a radical break with both US and international law and domestic practice. Traditionally, the Coast Guard has treated smugglers as criminals -- not terrorists and enemy combatants -- and arrested them to face the criminal justice system.

"If the OLC opinion authorizing strikes on cartels is as broad as it seems, it would mean DOJ has interpreted the president to have such extraordinary powers that he alone can decide to prosecute a war far broader than what Congress authorized after the attacks on 9/11," said Sarah Harrison, a former associate general counsel at the Defense Department who now works as a senior analyst at the Crisis Group." By this logic, any small, medium or big group that is trafficking drugs into the US -- the administration could claim it amounts to an attack against the United States and respond with lethal force," said Harrison, who had the outlines of the legal opinion described to her by CNN.

As recently as this week, both DOJ and DoD have stonewalled requests they produce the opinion. At a combative Tuesday hearing, Attorney General Pam Bondi told the Senate Judiciary Committee she would not discuss any DOJ opinions on the legality of strikes against civilian vessels in the Caribbean.

"I’m not going to discuss any legal advice that my department may, or may not, have given or issued at the direction of the president on this matter," she demurred. (She also refused to answer almost all other questions from Democratic senators, preferring instead to engage in ad hominem attacks against her questioners.)

International

American Basketball Player Faces Potential Death Penalty Over Medical Marijuana After Arrest in Indonesia. American basketball player Jarred Shaw faces a possible death sentence after being busted with more than 100 cannabis gummies in Indonesia. The 35-year-old Texan played internationally in the Indonesian Basketball League and says he used the gummies to treat Crohn's disease.

But Indonesia has draconian drug laws that include the possibility of the death penalty for his offense. The combined weight of the gummies was 869 grams, allowing a charge of possessing marijuana with the presumption of distribution, even though most of the weight of the gummies was from non-marijuana components.

"I use cannabis as a medicine," he said in an interview with the Guardian while in pre-trial detention in Jakarta. "I have an inflammatory condition called Crohn’s disease that’s incurable. There's no medicine apart from cannabis that stops my stomach from aching. "I made a stupid mistake," he said. "There's people telling me I'm about to spend the rest of my life in prison over some edibles."

"I've never been through anything like this," he said, adding that during his first two months after being arrested, he was at "the lowest point in [my] life" and in a "really dark mental place." "I felt helpless and alone. I didn't want to wake up again," he said. "I just turned 35 but I still feel young. I would love to continue my basketball career. They’re making it seem like I'm this big drug dealer," Shaw said. "Why would I bring the candy here to sell? It was for personal use."

The Trump administration has not said whether it will designate this as a case of a person wrongfully detained by a foreign government, as the Biden administration eventually did with Marc Fogel, who had been imprisoned for medical marijuana in Russia.