Chris Christie As President Would Kill Marijuana Legalization Advances

Even though Chris Christie has been circulated as a possible presidential candidate since 2012, the New Jersey governor still hasn’t made up his mind about whether or not he’ll be running in 2016, according to an interview with CBS’s Face the Nation that aired this Sunday.

That hasn’t prevented the characteristically outspoken Chris from hashing out possible plans of action if he were to take over for President Barack Obama next year. One key issue where Christie’s stance is sure to be divisive is tolerance of marijuana legalization. Chris said that if he won the 2016 election, he would no longer allow states that had legalized marijuana to operate outside of federal law, and it’s a conviction that Christie sounds unlikely to waver on.

“I think there’s probably a lot of people in Colorado who are not too thrilled with what’s going on there right now. You know the way you win any state? You go out and you tell people the truth and you lay out your ideas. And you either win or you lose. But I don’t believe that people just want to be told what they want to hear. I believe they want to be told the truth as the person who’s running sees it.”

While Chris’ direct style is unlikely to be softened even by a presidential campaign, public opinion favoring marijuana legalization indicates that Christie may be going off trend by expressing this opinion. According to an April Pew Research Center poll, support for legalizing the drug has risen to an all-time high of 53 percent, up more than 20 percent over the last decade, and 41 percent from when the center first asked the question in 1969.

Although Chris did stand firm with his marijuana legalization position, some of his responses to other questions in the interview could indicate that Christie is open to publicly changing a position. When asked about Common Core Educational Standards that he had implemented in his state, Chris said that the program had failed despite his earlier support.

“If what I’m worried about is, if I change my mind, gosh, somebody like John Dickerson’s going to accuse me, you know, of flip-flopping, well, that’s the way it goes. That’s being stubborn and not being a leader. If you give something four years, which we did in New Jersey, to work and it doesn’t work, then you need to change ’cause you owe it to the kids and their parents to do something different.”

Do you think Chris Christie’s position on marijuana legalization could hurt his chances to be president in 2016?

[Images via Scott Olson and David McNew / Getty Images]