Governor Gary "Big J" Johnson: Life of the Republican Party
This article was reprinted from Lonely Planet Santa Fe & Taos
After President Clinton’s pronouncement that he “didn’t inhale,” reporters nationwide began asking their own politicians if they had ever used marijuana. New Mexico’s 1994 gubernatorial candidate, Gary Johnson, answered “yes.” He had quit years earlier, however, noting (among other things) that being stoned made it more difficult to read.
Supporters worried that such honesty equaled political suicide, but with the inadvertent help of the Green Party, Johnson smoked the competition. The former owner of Big J Construction quickly earned a reputation as the nation’s most fiscally conservative governor and in 1998 became New Mexico’s first Republican governor to serve a second, and final, term.
Term limits give leaders the freedom to finally have their say, and in June 1999 Governor Johnson said, “I’m not advocating breaking the law, but personally I don’t think you should go to jail for smoking marijuana.” He also called the War on Drugs a “miserable failure.”
The firestorm was immediate and severe. Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey came up with the clever nickname “Puff Daddy Johnson,” and the Republican Party called on him to step down – or at least shut up. Johnson refused, complaining that drug arrests had increased 2000% since 1980 and more than half of his law enforcement budget went to fighting nonviolent drug users.
Politically Incorrect host Bill Maher called Johnson his hero. The libertarian Cato Institute called to ask if he’d be their keynote speaker. And fans of New Mexico’s number two cash crop (after hay) called on Johnson to legalize it. In 2001 Johnson introduced eight such bills to the legislature, from medical use of marijuana to full decriminalization of several drugs, including heroin. Not one of them passed.
State marijuana laws remain harsh: For one big J, you could spend 15 days in jail; even paraphernalia (that’d be “smoking accessories”) carry a large fine. But on leaving office, Johnson, an Ironman triathelete who advocate quitting both alcohol and coffee, on top of all legal drugs, vowed to continue working for a sane national drug policy – right after his vacation.
Quite fittingly, Johnson began private life by getting higher than anyone else on Earth: In May 2003 he successfully scaled Mount Everest. Gary, this bud’s for you.
Clear Test voted Gary Johnson “Pot Smoker of the Month” in 1999, while Libertarian Reason magazine interviewed the former governor in 2001.