Up in smoke: How Gary Johnson and a Colorado marijuana initiative could cost Obama the election

BOULDER, Colorado—Dressed in a sports jacket, a faded peace-symbol T-shirt and blue jeans, the Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson was playing to a rapturous overflow crowd at the University of Colorado. The man who could be the Ralph Nader of 2012 beguiled his largely male, mostly student audience with his views on the second-biggest issue on the Colorado ballot this year: Amendment 64, which would legalize marijuana.

“I’m the only candidate running for president of the United States who wants to end the drug war now,” Johnson, a former Republican governor of New Mexico, said Monday night to cheers. “Colorado has the opportunity to change worldwide drug policy by voting for Issue 64.”

Johnson, who first endorsed marijuana legalization in 1999, is a Ron Paul libertarian with a deep toke of social permissiveness. Even though he was an asterisk in the 2012 Republican presidential primaries, Johnson and his pro-pot stance could be a surprise factor in a swing state where all the polls point to a tie. As Jeff Orrok, the Colorado chairman of the Libertarian Party, puts it, “We’re getting a fair amount of synergy around Amendment 64.”

To read the rest of this article, click here!