Pro - Marijuana Candidate Gary Johnson Announces 2012 Presidential Bid

[P Blaze]

LA Times Article: http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-gary-johnson-gop-president-race-20110421,0,6646726.story

 

This article: http://networkedblogs.com/gWxgg

 

Former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson Formally announces his bid for the GOP nomination in 2012. Johnson, made his announcement on the steps of the New Hampshire State House Thursday Morning. Johnson, 58 has been a strong supporter of marijuana legalization, joking once “I never exhaled.â€

 

Johnson served as governor from 1995 through 2003. Before that, he started a one-person fix-it business that grew to 1,000 employees. He says he can fix the nation by asking two simple questions: What are we spending our money on? And what are we getting in return?

 

“Today’s mess didn’t just happen. We elected it — one senator, member of Congress and president at a time,†Johnson said in a statement. “Our leaders in Washington, D.C., have ‘led’ America to record unemployment, a devalued currency, banking scandals, the mortgage crisis, drug crisis, economic crisis, loss of our nation’s industrial might — and a long list of other reminders our nation is way off course.â€

 

More than just supporting legalization, though, Johnson admits to using weed both as a youth and more recently: between 2005 and 2007, after a paragliding accident, even though medical marijuana was at that point still illegal in New Mexico.

 

“Rather than using painkillers, which I have used on occasion before, I did smoke pot, as a result of having broken my back, blowing out both of my knees, breaking ribs, really taking about three years to recover,†Johnson says.

 

Johnson has foregone an exploratory committee and instead jumped straight into the race. He plans to hold a press conference Thursday afternoon, and on Friday he will host a kick-off event in Manchester. Johnson has spent much of the last year traveling the country as part of a campaign for his group, Our America Initiative.

 

“We can’t afford to simply kick the can down the road for another four or eight years,†he told supporters Thursday.

 

http://www.garyjohnson2012.com/

[Psychonaut]

Haha I just came on here to post about this guy and see you beat me to it.

 

Refreshing when someone on the right shows some common sense and sees the drug issues as plain as they are.

 

Here is an article with his responses about the drug war,

 

http://www.drugwarrant.com/2011/05/gary-johnson-is-asked-about-the-drug-war/

 

As Governor of New Mexico, what my pledge was, and what I did, and I’m really proud of this, and I said I was going to do this, that everything was going to be a cost-benefit analysis. Everything. What are we spending our money on, and what are we getting for the money that we’re spending. That there wouldn’t be any sacred cows, that politics was going to be the last consideration on the list, that first and foremost it was going to be about the issues, and understanding the issues. So when it comes to the war on drugs, I’m opposed to the war on drugs A through Z. But I came at it initially from the standpoint of – and, you know, there’s naivety, I guess, on a broad number of issues, and this is after I’m elected, one of them is, I guess I really didn’t understand that half of everything we spend on law enforcement, the courts, and the prisons is drug-related, and when you think about that, that is just staggering.

 

And when you think about what are we getting for half law enforcement, half the courts, and half the prisons? Well what we’re getting, is we’re arresting 1.8 million people a year in this country, which I point out is the population of New Mexico, that gets arrested every single year. And, we now have 2.3 million people behind bars. We have the highest incarceration rate of any country in the world. And this is America? Liberty, freedom, the personal responsibility that goes along with that? I guess, except when it comes to your own body and what the decisions are surrounding that.

 

So going back to 1999, I came to the conclusion… that 90% of the drug problem is prohibition-related, not use-related. That’s not to discount the problems with use and abuse, but that ought to be the focus. So in 1999, I advocated then, I advocate it now. Legalize marijuana. Control it, regulate it, tax it. It’s never going to be legal to smoke pot, become impaired, get behind the wheel of a car, do harm to others. It’s never going to be legal for kids to smoke pot or buy pot. And under which scenario is it going to be easier for kids to smoke pot or buy pot? The situation that exists today, where it’s virtually available anywhere, and the person that sells pot also sells harder drugs? Or a situation where to purchase it, you would have to produce an ID in a controlled environment, like alcohol, to be able to buy it. I think you can make the case that it would be harder to buy it, in that controlled environment.

[Morgaine]

I hope this guy has mirrions of dollars for the presidential campaign.

 

If he doesn't, best ALL stoners in the US contribute to it.....he won't win without gazillions.

Sad but true.

 

Get to it Yankee stoners...support this guy !

[Sig]

yer, no chance to win. Its the medias choice of the big 2 contenders in America. Would be funny to see what he would do if elected though!

[kushmum]

LA Times Article: http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-gary-johnson-gop-president-race-20110421,0,6646726.story

 

This article: http://networkedblogs.com/gWxgg

 

 

GL Mr. Johnson