During a luncheon hosted by the Miami Herald in April 1990, Trump slammed U.S. drug enforcement policy as “a joke,” and argued that tax dollars from a legalized, regulated narcotics industry could be spent on programs educating Americans about the dangers of drugs and addiction.
“We’re losing badly the war on drugs,” he said, rightly so, to the crowd of 700 people. “You have to legalize drugs to win that war. You have to take the profit away from these drug czars.”
Trump was inspired to weigh in on the drug war partly due to the fact that “South Florida has such a huge problem with drugs,” he said. During the Miami Herald luncheon, he blamed America’s drug problems on politicians who “don’t have any guts” to address the issue.