Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), a sponsor of multiple Senate bills to remove cannabis from the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), joked at an event late last month promoting his book “Stand” that McDonald’s french fries deserve federal scheduling more than marijuana.
“I am the leader in the Senate for descheduling marijuana, but we should schedule McDonald’s french fries,” he said. “I don’t know what they put on them. I think it is an illegal substance.”
The remarks arose during a story about his driver of 20 years—with him since his time as mayor of Newark, New Jersey—who wordlessly pulled into a McDonald’s drive-through after seeing what Booker called the “look of shame” on his face. Booker said he ordered two servings and held the fries like the One Ring from Lord of the Rings.
He made a similar joke in 2019 as a Democratic presidential candidate after a Burger King stop: “I’m the guy that believes we should deschedule marijuana on the federal level, but maybe we should schedule those fries because they are very addictive.” Booker is vegan; McDonald’s U.S. fries contain natural beef flavor, while Burger King’s contain no animal products.
In a January interview, Booker said Trump’s executive order directing the Department of Justice to expedite moving cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III was “too early to tell” in its implications—there were “things that look promising” but he is “very concerned about where the DOJ will land.” Nearly four months after the order, the Justice Department has issued no formal update.
Booker said finalized rescheduling could open a congressional path to the Secure and Fair Enforcement Regulation Banking Act (SAFER Banking Act), which would expand financial services access for cannabis businesses. “As a legislator, for me, that might get us an opening to some of the things that are stalled in Congress,” he said. “But ultimately that’s where I feel more comfortable, so that no matter who the president is, we have a structure that works to end the injustices and to liberate, frankly, an industry that has been severely hamstrung.”
After previously threatening to block SAFER Banking over insufficient equity provisions, Booker said he has since “been able to get into SAFER some of the elements that are important to me to be able to support it.” He has also co-sponsored legislation with fellow Democratic senators to deschedule marijuana fully from the CSA.
