Johnson Running For Prez

[vta]

So far, Gary Johnson will be the most pot-friendly candidate for the next presidential election. Now if we can just get Jared Polis to run for Vice President! The legalization Train Goes On!

I climbed Everest. I run triathlons. I fell fifty feet while paragliding and lived. Why would my pot use concern you?

Fox News has learned the former Governor of New Mexico will announce his candidacy, for President of the United States in late April. Johnson insiders say he will bypass the exploratory stage, announce his candidacy and immediately travel to New Hampshire sometime after tax day, April 15. Johnson is a strong supporter of legalizing marijuana and gay marriage. Strategists say his libertarian approach to GOP politics may prove very popular in the Granite State, whose motto is “Live Free or Die.”

When asked in a wide ranging interview with Fox News what he thinks is the most important issue facing America today, the answer is immediate, “I think it’s the fact that we’re bankrupt, that we’re borrowing 43 cents out of every dollar that we’re spending.”

He does not see his stand on issues like marijuana legalization as detriments to a potential GOP nominee. “It’s just one in a series of cost-benefits. What are we spending our money on and what are we getting for the money we’re spending. Half of the money we’re spending on the courts and law enforcement and prisons is drug related. And what are we getting for that? Well, we’re arresting 1.8-million people a year in this country, which is just staggering when you considering the population of New Mexico is 1.8-million.”

As for gay rights, “I support gay unions, and yeah, I think this country is first and foremost about liberty and freedom and the personal responsibility that goes along with that, and I can’t imagine denying rights to gay couples that want to experience the American dream just like everybody else.”

 

[Marquis de Sod]

if i were a republican i might like this guy.

 

[dagnabit]

if i were a rational thinking person i would like this guy.

 

[DrPoison]

Well IMVHO...they all say what they think you want to hear...then they get into office and do absolutely nothing about it!! They want everyone voting for them...so they will try to befriend anyone they can...they get into office because of these people...then they turn around and shit on everyone that helped vote them in. Even if they wanted to change things...their hands are tied...the president doesnt make the rules...the government does! Look at Obama and what he has done for the MMJ community?!?

 

[Deft]

I hear trump is for legalization too. But that would be silly, he is a TV personality now.

 

[compost]

I am gonna write in Gypsy nirvana in '12. Or some other site administrator that could legally win.

 

[vta]

Well IMVHO...they all say what they think you want to hear...then they get into office and do absolutely nothing about it!! They want everyone voting for them...so they will try to befriend anyone they can...they get into office because of these people...then they turn around and shit on everyone that helped vote them in. Even if they wanted to change things...their hands are tied...the president doesnt make the rules...the government does! Look at Obama and what he has done for the MMJ community?!?

I hear ya...Obama sure took us for a ride but the difference here is that Johnson has spoke out about Legalization...

oh...and he smoked it too...

Gov. Gary Johnson: I smoked marijuana from 2005-2008

By "Radical" Russ Belville

I climbed Everest. I run triathlons. I fell fifty feet while paragliding and lived. Why would my pot use concern you?

Former NM Gov. Gary Johnson told the conservative magazine The Weekly Standard that he used marijuana for medical purposes from 2005-2008, before his state had passed a medical marijuana law.

Johnson has long portrayed himself as someone who has used marijuana. ”I don’t drink. I don’t smoke pot. But I have drank and I have smoked pot,” is a line I’ve personally heard the governor use in stump speeches at the NORML National Conference in Portland, the Seattle Hempfest, and he Cypress Hill Smokeout in San Bernardino, just three of the many pro-marijuana events Johnson has attended in support of his “Our America Initiative”. The Standard interviewed the possible candidate for the Republican nomination for president and became the first journalists to press Johnson on the time frame of his past-tense marijuana references.

“It’s not anything I volunteer, but you’re the only person that actually asked about it,” says Johnson, who governed New Mexico from 1994 to 2002. “But for luck, I guess, I wasn’t arrested.” Although smoking marijuana for medicinal purposes was illegal in New Mexico until 2007, Johnson says he needed the drug following a 2005 paragliding accident in Hawaii. His sails got caught in a tree, he stalled—and fell about fifty feet straight down to the ground, he says. Johnson suffered multiple bone fractures, including a burst fracture to his T12 vertebrae. “In my human experience, it’s the worst pain I’ve ever felt.”

“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. He explains that painkillers had once caused him to suffer nasty side effects and the pain of withdrawing from the pills was unbearable. So, Johnson says, in 2005 “someone” who cared for him gave him marijuana to deal with the pain.

The Standard points out that Johnson’s honesty about his illegal medical marijuana use may be a handicap in appealing to Republican primary voters but it may be easier to sell to the typically more-conservative primary voter than his stance on cutting the bloated defense budget and withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan. He might also be an enigma to voters on both sides of the aisle with his support for gay civil unions yet opposition to a constitutional right to marriage (he thinks “government should be out of the marriage business and leave marriage to the churches.”) Women might applaud his support of a women’s right to abortion but think twice over his belief that Roe v. Wade was badly-decided from a constitutional perspective. Those Ron Paul supporters who might be attracted to Johnson’s libertarian streak might balk at his belief that “we really do have a vested interest in Israel” and his rejection of the 9/11 Truth movement calling for a reopening of the 9/11 investigation.

The 2012 presidential race will be featuring an incumbent who has disappointed much of his base, especially those of us who also “inhaled, frequently, that was the point”. There are already murmurs in Democratic and Progressive circles about running a Democratic primary challenger against President Obama, much like Sen. Ted Kennedy ran against President Jimmy Carter in 1980. On the GOP side, we may see Newt Gingrich carrying the neo-conservative vote, Mitt Romney appealing to the corporate conservatives, and Gary Johnson calling out to the libertarian-leaning Republicans. Throw in a possible GOP or even Independent bid from Sarah Palin, pulling the populist Tea Party votes, and I think Gary Johnson and the issue of marijuana legalization could win a plurality of the vote.

Wouldn’t it be nice to have someone to vote for who doesn’t want to throw you in jail?

 

[bentom187]

i would rather have jessie ventura for pres.. than a guy who smoked weed for 3 yrs and calls himself a radical lol..

”I don’t drink. I don’t smoke pot. But I have drank and I have smoked pot,”
what a ass backward statment.

i hate politics,but i never hated politics.

 

[AfroSheep]

too bad the american presidency is chosen years in advance of the elections, they make it a cat and mouse game to get people to think their votes count,
The polls have been rigged for who knows how many years.

 

[Hydrosun]

Well IMVHO...they all say what they think you want to hear...then they get into office and do absolutely nothing about it!! They want everyone voting for them...so they will try to befriend anyone they can...they get into office because of these people...then they turn around and shit on everyone that helped vote them in. Even if they wanted to change things...their hands are tied...the president doesnt make the rules...the government does! Look at Obama and what he has done for the MMJ community?!?

Well not all of them say they smoke cannabis and it benefits them personally.

With an executive order the President of the United States can change almost (almost) anything.

I will get out and vote for him if he makes it onto the ballot.

 

[Dudesome]

too bad the american presidency is chosen years in advance of the elections, they make it a cat and mouse game to get people to think their votes count,
The polls have been rigged for who knows how many years.

I second that. It is the same kind of situation is in Russia nowadays.
Honestly, even if this guy's true to his voters about his plans and he is ideological - it only enhaces the chances of him not being CHOSEN.

 

[Dudesome]

I will get out and vote for him if he makes it onto the ballot.

please do that

 

[wemary]

ye fuck trump i cant believe that fucker wants to run for president. get out of here, the last thing america needs is some mega rich asshole capitalist in the office abusing everyone.

 

[SouthrnPrideX]

He's the best thing we have ever had running for president!! Well next to mr.Washington. Gary Johnson all the way!!! The only change he wants to see is yours stay in your pocket. He cut taxs 8 times in 4 years in new mexico while in office. Use google and find out for yourself.
He's all about shutting down the DEA and the feds. Again don't listen to what people say and research what they have done to stand behind what they say. Unlike the fucking idiot that way have in there now.

 

[SouthrnPrideX]

Sorry for the typo..

 

[ijim]

Well IMVHO...they all say what they think you want to hear...then they get into office and do absolutely nothing about it!! They want everyone voting for them...so they will try to befriend anyone they can...they get into office because of these people...then they turn around and shit on everyone that helped vote them in. Even if they wanted to change things...their hands are tied...the president doesnt make the rules...the government does! Look at Obama and what he has done for the MMJ community?!?

The president has the full attention of the media. And our representatives vote yes or no on how they think their vote will be represented by the media. But can you count on the president for anything? He has taken us into another lose lose war after declaring the last two illegal. We were fooled again. But you have to keep trying. Johnson looks better than anyone else out there.

 

[pearlemae]

Given todays political climate on the "conservative" (tea baggers) side of the equation, Johnson doesn't have a "Snowballs chance in Hell" of ever getting elected. The hard right thats driving the conversation, will never vote for a pot smoking, gay loving candidate.
It more important to have discourse on women's reproductive rights WHAT GOIES ON IN MY WIFE UTERUS IS HER BUSINESS AND NO ONE ELSE'S. and where Obama may have been born. Tax cuts for the uber rich while chopping the safety net for the less fortunate.
Yes, Johnson is on the board of the Marijuana Policy Inst, but thats not going to change the mindset of the tea baggers that have the right running around like the idiots they are.

my 2 cents

 

[thighrod]

Too bad that the pro-legalization candidates have other views which spoil the whole package (Johnson, Paul, etc).

 

[medMUser]

if i were a republican i might like this guy.

Why do ya gotta be an R to like a candidate? Both 'parties' pretty much stink. To get any political traction in the US one has to be in one of the big two. Our laws really need reworked in this area!

I think Rep Ron Paul & Dem Dennis Kucinich would make a great team. Both want to end the drug war & the other wars & bring the troops home.

Both are in favor of RE-legalizing cannabis & hemp. Both call for a sane US $ policy & want the USA to stop meddling in other nation's affairs, especially the Mid East. All we do in the ME is PO the Muslims.

Hope every one is having a great green spring & has a hempy summer!

I forgot to mention I think GJ is A-OK. I'd vote for him.

mM