'Puff Daddy' Gary Johnson Clears the Air on Drugs

The answer to the question "Did you inhale?" will definitely be yes if New Mexico’s former Republican governor Gary Johnson runs for president in 2008, as he indicates in the Albuquerque Journal today.

Nicknamed "Puff Daddy" after he was interviewed on numerous programs such as "60 Minutes" and "Politically Incorrect With Bill Maher," and in magazines such as Playboy, Johnson became famous for his stance on legalization of drugs.

The two-term governor simply doesn’t believe in spending millions on incarcerating people for using drugs.

The Journal says, "Johnson's vision is to run on the drug issue much like Eugene McCarthy ran on the Vietnam issue against Lyndon B. Johnson — not to win, but to force the issue into the debate."

The Libertarian Party invited Johnson to run for president in this election, based largely on his drug position, but he declined and says he’ll vote for Bush this year.

The 51-year-old, who is more libertarian than conservative, is looking more the part. His once-shorn head has grown the long locks of a stereotypical Taos hippie.

Johnson laughs: "You're going to show these pictures in the paper, and there’s gong to be a letter to the editor: 'I knew that guy smoked pot. I just knew it.'"

But looks can be deceiving. Johnson, a physical fitness fanatic and Iron Man competitor, long ago gave up the fondness for marijuana he once happily indulged. He says he hasn’t smoked pot since two years before he ran for governor and doesn’t even drink coffee now. He's more into the white powder these days.

Since handing over New Mexico to Democrat Gov. Bill Richardson in 2003 and then summiting Mount Everest, Johnson is spending his days on the ski slopes of Taos – and contemplating how to turn the drug war issue into a bigger national debate.

He would like to run in an open Republican primary in 2008 or 2012 with legalization of drugs as the core of his campaign.

Though numerous legalization bills were introduced, albeit unsuccessfully, in his final term, his governorship otherwise reads as if it came straight out of the conservative Republican playbook. He vetoed so many spending bills that he became known to the Democrat majority in the Legislature and around the state as "Governor No."

But when his term was up, New Mexico, one of the poorest states in the country, was one of four states still in the black. And the Clintonoid Richardson, who has duped even some conservative radio and TV talk show hosts into believing he’s a tax-cutting fiscal conservative, has since used the budget surplus he inherited to triple his office's budget and add dozens to his staff – including a personal stylist, a high-priced Washington, D.C., lobbyist, and a full-time chef for the Governor’s Mansion.

The Associated Press has also reported on the "slush fund" used to pay for Starbucks coffee and Altoids mints for the governor's numerous staff members.

"The basic difference between Bill and I is I left office with a $1.5 million [governor's office] budget, and his budget now is $4.2 million. And I had control of over 400 exempt positions, and of those I may have hired 40, and those 40 then hired the balance of the 400. Richardson has hired every single one of those people. You can't run an effective business or organization like that. ..."

High on an opportunity to use the national spotlight to spur reform of drug laws, Johnson asks, "Is there a bigger issue facing us today that is so fixable?"

It's Not an 'Experiment'

Incidentally, do you feel like retching when people say they "experimented" with drugs, as if they were scientists in lab coats conducting research? If so, then Johnson is a refreshing puff of candor.

Here's a quote from an interview with National Review in November 1999:

"In running for office during my first term, I offered up the fact that I smoked marijuana. And the media was very quick to say, 'Oh, so you experimented with marijuana.' No, I smoked marijuana. This is something that I did. I did it along with a lot of other people. But me and my buddies, you know ... we enjoyed what we were doing."

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