Mitt Romney's Crazy Comments on Medical Marijuana

The instant I write something suggesting that Romney wouldn't be any worse than Obama on medical marijuana, along comes Romney flipping out on a reporter for merely asking about it. The fun starts at 2:10:

So…Mitt Romney totally hates marijuana, but also doesn’t think it's important enough to be worth talking about. It's a horribly tone-deaf and idiotic thing to say in Colorado, where marijuana policy is a major issue and a legalization initiative is hitting the ballot the same day Romney is asking Coloradans for their votes. Language like that is also just perfect for alienating the Ron Paul crowd, whose support he desperately needs if he's going to get anywhere in the general election. 

But just when you thought Romney was completely clueless on this, watch the end of the interview (at about 4:50) and you'll see him saying marijuana is a state issue that's irrelevant to his presidential campaign. Seriously? You wait until the interview is over to say something interesting about this?

A lot of people in Colorado and elsewhere would be very excited to think that Mitt Romney would leave marijuana policy up to the states. To even suggest such a thing is a very clever hedge that might work to earn some sympathy from libertarian-leaning republicans.  But if you're gonna take that path, don't precede it by saying pot is a horrible gateway drug and insulting everyone by insisting the issue isn't even significant enough to discuss.

It really shouldn’t even be necessary to explain to a prominent politician that people ask questions because they care about the subject. It's just impossibly rude and stupid to mock anything any reasonable person asks you, especially when it has to do with a policy as deeply unpopular and controversial as the government's ongoing war on medical marijuana. If marijuana is important enough to arrest people for possessing, then it's important enough to discuss. And if it's important enough to discuss, then no politician who can't or won't discuss it intelligently is fit to hold public office.

It should soon become clear to Mitt Romney that he can't visit states like Colorado without taking questions about marijuana, and when that happens, he'd be very wise to tell us a lot less about how marijuana is a "gateway drug," and a lot more about how it's a state issue.

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