New Jersey Governor Chris Christie Compares Cannabis to Heroin

Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey has once again spoken out against cannabis, which is not a rare occurrence. In his monthly “Ask the Governor” program through a local New Jersey radio station, he spoke openly about what he believes to be the truth when it comes to medical cannabis, “To me, legalization of marijuana for tax purposes—and that’s the way people justify it because you can’t justify it anyway—it’s blood money,” he said. “That’s what it is to me. I have watched too many kids start their addiction with alcohol and marijuana, and then move on to much more serious drugs. And every study shows that marijuana is a gateway drug.”

Christie also suggested that justifying taxing cannabis is the same as taxing Angel Dust or heroin. “I’m sorry, there’s nothing that we spend in government that’s important enough to allow me to willfully poison our children for that money,” Chris Christie Christie said. “That’s blood money. Now, I understand other states have decided the other way. You’re damn right I’m the only impediment. And I am going to remain the only impediment until January of 2018.”

Marijuanatimes.org got into contact with John Hudak of The Brookings Institute, who responded to Christie’s argument with a well thought out explanation on why Governor Christie is wrong, “The policy research shows us in places where this drug is illegal, you have people committing crimes and doing bad things,” Hudak said. “Legalization tries to regulate an illegal market in ways that try to chorale public behavior toward the outcomes that the public wants, that’s the outcome—that’s the goal of the reform community.”

“Here is how there is a gateway effect with marijuana: It’s not something chemical, it’s not something biological, it has nothing to do with the pant—it has to do with the black market. And when an individual is going to a drug dealer to access marijuana he’s also being exposed to other, harder drugs. And drug dealers have a very interesting and useful and hard bargaining way to drive someone away from marijuana, where they get a much lower profit margin—to something much more addictive and much harder and with a much higher profit margin.”

Governor Chris Christie may be an opponent of medical cannabis, but there are many more people who are discovering every day that cannabis is helpful and worth every tax dollar spent.