Tim Walz Went To War On Zyn While Pushing Free Needles, Legalizing Pot
Tim Walz has legalized pot, pushed free needles and is open to psychedelic drug legalization, all while taxing nicotine pouches at a 95 percent clip during his tenure as Minnesota’s Governor.
Democrats are attempting to sell Walz as a friend to the working class, praising his “Midwestern values.” His policy history, however, indicates a Walz-Harris Administration may be in favor of crushing the vices of blue collar and traditional America.
Walz, who Vice President Kamala Harris tapped in early August to be her running mate, amended the state’s Tobacco Tax law in May to categorize tobacco-free nicotine products like Zyn as “moist snuff,” rendering it eligible for a 95 percent tax rate.
Use of adult smokeless tobacco, which includes Zyn nicotine pouches, skew heavily towards midwestern, low-income men living in rural areas, according to data from the CDC and the UK’s National Institute of Health (NIH).
Zyn has also become a popular emblem among proponents of traditional masculinity, with popular voices like Joe Rogan and Daily Caller co-founder Tucker Carlson championing them.
The product also became an unlikely political battleground after Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called for a federal crackdown on the pouches.
The left’s war on Zyn has prompted backlash from prominent Republican lawmakers.
Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are more concerned with policing working class vices like Zyn than dealing with the crisis on the border, Republican Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville told the Daily Caller.
“Democrats would rather exert more government authority over Americans instead of addressing the surge of deadly drugs pouring into our country,” Tuberville said.
Besides adding tobacco-free pouches like Zyn to the state’s Tobacco Tax, Walz also attempted to further increase the 95 percent tax on vape devices in 2021, according to Americans for Tax Reform.
He also presided over a number of policies seemingly geared towards legalizing and decriminalizing illicit drug use.
Walz signed a bill in May 2023 legalizing the recreational use of cannabis in the state. The bill mandates a ten percent tax rate on the retail sales of cannabis.
A few days later he signed the House Omnibus Judiciary and Public Safety Finance appropriations bill, a bill that expanded access to “harm reduction” services and bolstered the state’s Syringe Services Program (SSP).
The program, funded through the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH), provides sterile syringes and supplies, containers for safe disposal of used syringes and overdose drugs like Naloxone at no cost to users.
While removing all language criminalizing the possession of syringes, the bill also legalized the possession of all drug paraphernalia, even that which contained residue.
In May 2024, Walz announced his plans for grants providing $100 million for combatting homelessness. One recipient of the grant was Southside Harm Reduction Services, an organization whose services include “syringe exchange, naloxone distribution, education, rapid HIV testing and referrals to social services including housing,” according to the announcement.
Walz’s pro-drug policies follow a left-wing trend of decriminalizing and legalizing drugs at the state level that are federally illegal under The Controlled Substances Act.
After Oregon became the first state to decriminalize possession of all drugs in 2020, the state’s Democratic Governor Tina Kotek reversed course, signing a bill that re-criminalized the possession of hard drugs in April 2024.
Citizens who voted yes on the bill to decriminalize drugs quickly changed their mind. In 2020, 58.46 percent of voters supported Oregon’s Measure 110, a referendum bill which made the maximum penalty for possession of drugs for personal use $100. But in 2023, 56 percent of voters believed it should be repealed as the state’s largest city, Portland, saw a surge in overdoses. The number of people who died of overdoses jumped from 610 in 2019 to nearly 1200 in 2022, according to KOIN 6 News.
Drug overdose deaths across the country have risen at a prodigious rate, jumping from 52,404 in 2015 to 107,941 in 2022, according to data from the National Institute for Drug Abuse.
While some analysts argue the decriminalization of hard drugs like heroin can drive revenue that can be used for education and rehabilitation programs, others say the costs of decriminalization far outweigh the benefits.
Widespread availability of illicit drugs is “the mother of use,” former United States Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare Joseph A. Califano Jr. argued in a U.K. National Institute of Health head to head.
Califano referenced Switzerland’s “needle park,” a government initiative meant to restrict heroin users to a small area. The project “turned into a grotesque tourist attraction of 20,000 addicts and had to be closed before it infected the entire city of Zurich.”
He also noted that Italy, which decriminalized possession of small doses of drugs like heroin, has one of the highest rates of heroin addiction in Europe.
In addition to legalizing pot and making it easier for citizens to use needles, Walz green-lit a Psychedelic Medicine Task Force to study the effects of psilocybin mushrooms, MDMA and LSD.
“The task force is mandated to explore both the therapeutic benefits of psychedelics and the legal pathways by which Minnesota’s government can help patients successfully navigate the labyrinth of federal laws and regulations in order to get access to these potential medicines,” Kurtis Hanna, a drug law reform lobbyist, told Marijuana Moment.
The bill calls for $338,000 of appropriations in 2024 and another $171,000 to fund the task force in 2025. It calls for “statutory changes necessary for the legalization of psychedelic medicine” and “state and local regulation of psychedelic medicine.”
Walz signing the bill cleared the way for other leaders in his state to follow suit. In June 2023, Minneapolis’ Democratic mayor Jacob Frey ordered law enforcement to deprioritize the use of city resources to enforce laws that criminalize buying psychedelics.
Frey’s executive order stated “that the investigation and arrest of persons for planting, cultivating, purchasing, transporting, distributing, engaging in practices with, or possessing Entheogenic Plants or plant compounds which are on the federal Schedule 1 list shall be the lowest law enforcement priority for the City of Minneapolis.”
The psychedelics task force will deliver a final report to the state with findings and recommendations by January 1, 2025, according to the bill. Advocates believe that these steps are clearing a path for the legalization of all psychedelic substances in Minnesota.
“If—and hopefully when—I’m re-elected and this task force gives their final report..my hope is to bring that legislation in that session,” Democratic State Rep. Andy Smith told Marijuana Movement.
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Robert McGreevy
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