Vice Presidential Candidate Paul Ryan On Medical Marijuana: “I Support States’ Rights”
by Allen St. Pierre, NORML
In a clear departure from his more socially conservative top-of-the-ticket running mate Mitt Romney, vice presidential candidate Congressman Paul Ryan, in an interview this afternoon on KRDO in Colorado Springs, when confronted with a question about whether or not he supported patients in Colorado having legal access to cannabis for medical purposes, Ryan said that although he personally opposes medical cannabis use he would defer to the judgment of each state to make up its own mind on the issue.
Here’s the KRDO video:
Of course, Representative Ryan’s public policy position, as articulated here, is not much different in scope or tone from what George W. Bush and President Barack Obama claimed too when running for president, only to commit significant Department of Justice resources in closing down hundreds of otherwise lawful, state-compliant medical cannabis dispensaries.
Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney has historically opposed any legal access to medical cannabis and rejects states’ efforts to create policies different then the federal government’s. At the 2:35 mark in the video capture below from an interview Governor Romney gave to a Denver TV station during the primaries, he not only affirmed his opposition to even medical access to cannabis (which approximately 75% of the American population supports), but is equally dismissive of states’ efforts to come up with alternative public policies to that of the fed’s abject failure.
Looks like Romney and Ryan are not exactly two cannabis seeds in a pod…
Article from The NORML Blog and republished with permission.
