[GoldStandard]

Damn. That sucks. I thought he’d be a states’ rights guy on abortion.

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

It's very discouraging, because Johnson has a solid record and he's not that old. He should have ran in 2008 but the evangelicals wouldn't have voted for him anyway because of drug and abortion stand.

P.S. - Don't let FReeper Eternal Vigilance see your post about the states' right argument on abortion ROFL

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

Same interview, he's also pro-open borders.

PLAYBOY: Would you open the borders and make it easier to immigrate legally?

JOHNSON: My vision of the border with Mexico is that a truck from the United States going into Mexico and a truck coming from Mexico into the United States will pass each other at the border going 60 miles an hour. Yes, we should have open borders. It will help enormously with the drug issue, too, by the way. One of the huge raps on Mexico is that it is a drug supplier, that it's the drug corridor. But there wouldn't be drugs coming in illegally from Mexico if there weren't the demand in the United States. We have a militarized border with Mexico, and it's a shame. It doesn't work very well, either. Mexican mules get paid a king's ransom to carry marijuana or cocaine across the border, but they are just mules. If they get caught, they're the ones who get locked up, not the drug lords. One out of eight gets caught. Whoever's paying them south of the border knows that equation and understands the risk.

[josiahschmidt]

Johnson is personally pro-choice, but he believes that the federal government has no business dealing with the abortion issue. He is a 10th amendment States Rights guy, and would seek to REPEAL ROE V WADE. Johnson has said, “Abortion is best left to the States in making such decisions.” Even on the State level, however, Johnson as Governor of the State of New Mexico was endorsed by the Right To Life Committee for his working in passing parental consent and informed consent laws, banning partial birth abortion, and ending Medicaid funding for abortion.

As for drug legalization, Johnson only supports outright legalization of marijuana, and supports harm reduction strategies for other drugs. Johnson doesn’t support doing drugs—in fact, since his youth, he has abstained from all drugs, including marijuana, alcohol, nicotene, and even to a certain extent caffeine. His view is merely that throwing people in jail for simply ingesting something in their own body is not helping the problem. He simply wants a more fiscally responsible, cost effective, and states rights oriented approach to the drug problem. Even Tom Tancredo has recently come to agree with Johnson on this issue.