Most people will by now have seen the storm in a tea cup that was Gary Johnson Libertarian (Republican light) candidate for president fail to know what Aleppo is and represents. So they guy is dumber than a bag of hammers, big whop. What is far more concerning is his admission that the last time he smoked weed was 3 months ago. I have nothing against this admission, except why does no “Journalist” ever follow up with some of the more basic questions such as “where did you do that Gary?” or more importantly “when did you start smoking weed Gary”?
Here’s the thing, between 1994 and 2002 Mr. Johnson was governor of the State of New Mexico. As Governor he is responsible for amongst other things law enforcement the Judiciary and State Police. Indeed part of his platform in 1994 he touted his “Law and Order” credentials “a commercial from Johnson's reelection campaign, featuring Johnson saying that a felon in New Mexico would serve "every lousy second" of their prison sentence”. For those of you paying attention at home the 1994 to 2002 period represented the height of the War on (Some) Drugs. In 1994 some 3,300 inmates were held in New Mexico State prison of whom 26 percent were held on drug related charges, by 2003 the number of prisoners had increased to 6200 (including 2700 in Private facilities, nice little earner that) of whom 39 percent were for simple possession. Translation the prison population in New Mexico increased by 2900 people of whom 1131 were convicted of simple possession, for something that the former Governor was apparently happy to do in the privacy of the Governor’s Mansion. Does the term Raging Hypocrite mean anything?
One area where the Governor holds a lot of authority is in commuting sentence, with the stroke of a pen the jailed can be free. As Governor Gary Johnson could have pardoned all those in jail for simple possession. How many were pardoned? Considering that during his second term he apparently started on his legalization initiative, the answer is that he would rather have opened private prisons because the pardon process is complicated…..So if its difficult why bother? Mark Ames correctly noted Gary Johnson is just a hard line republican who likes to smoke weed.