Mitt Romney was in the Granite State over the weekend where he held another of his "Ask Mitt Anything" rallies. The Governor will field questions on anything that the audience wants to ask and will answer them as best he can. He'll also give quick answers to questions people ask him as he greets them after the rally.
That's what happened with Clayton Holton.
Mr. Holton, who is stricken with muscular dystrophy, claims he has been told by five of his doctors that he's living proof that medical marijuana "works." He's also quick to point out that he's against legalizing it for everyone, but thinks there are valid medical uses for it.
His ultimate question--which seemed to be staged before the cameras--was this:
"My question for you is will you arrest me or my doctors if I get medical marijuana."
CNN just happened to get a camera in place to capture the exchange.
To view the video on CNN's free video player, click here:
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/politics/2007/10/07/romney.confronted.cnn
(There is a brief advertisement before the actual video.)
After Mitt says "I'm not in favor of medical marijuana being legal in the country," Mr. Holton asks him the question again. As soon as Mitt moves on, someone outside the frame begins to hammer him on the issue and wraps up with "You're just going to ignore a person in a wheelchair?"
Their attempt to make him look bad is as transparent as it is disgusting.
Romney told Holton (who is a volunteer representative of Granite Staters for Medical Marijuana) that he didn't support it...so, of course that means marijuana would still be illegal to prescribe and partake of. They just wanted to get him on video saying it to someone in a wheelchair.
In fact, it's not the first time that the Granite Staters for Medical Marijuana have tried this.
From the Granite Staters for Medical Marijuana website:
After the July 25 event, GSMM volunteers, including a seriously ill patient in a wheelchair and a medical professional, approached Gov. Romney to ask a follow-up question. After Gov. Romney ignored the ill patient's repeated attempts to ask him a question, a GSMM staffer asked him, "I was wondering why you don't respect states' rights when it concerns seriously ill patients who use medical marijuana in the 12 states that have approved its use. Why don't you respect states' rights in that situation, a life and death situation?" Gov. Romney responded, "Because synthetic marijuana is available by prescription. It's very simple, very simple, very simple."
There's also a tiny little thing called Federal Law which controls the drug policy in this nation and that trumps "states' rights" on this issue. That little tidbit doesn't seem to matter to the GSSM, though. They just want to step in and make the GOP candidates look bad. (It's true...all the Republicans in the voter guide on their website get an "F" except for Ron Paul who gets an A+ and Fred Thompson who gets an "Incomplete.")
(UPDATE~10/18: I've been corrected on one point by cannibis.flower{at}gmail{dot}com--Tom Tancredo also gets an A+ from the Granite Staters for Medical Marijuana. Indeed. How proud he must be.)
Romney has actually answered this question at length--and the members of the GSSM know this. After all, I got this quote from their website:
During a town meeting in Laconia, New Hampshire, on May 29, 2007, GSMM staff asked the former governor if he would respect the will of voters and legislators in the 12 medical marijuana states and end the federal raids on patients and caregivers. He responded, "I don't want marijuana to be used in our country. I'm not going to legalize marijuana."
The questioner then clarified that he was asking about medical marijuana, not marijuana legalization, asking, "Can you articulate a benefit to arresting sick and dying people who use effective medicine?" Gov. Romney responded, "I'm not talking about arresting sick and dying people, but I am talking about keeping marijuana from being a product on the street and being misused. The drug czar of our nation says it is the gateway drug for people becoming involved with drugs and drugs are a scourge of this country..."
The fact is, Mitt has dealt with these people before and that's why he moved on. The question was asked and answered--and has been asked and answered at other Romney events. It's more than likely that Clayton Holton knew the answer before Romney even came up to him.
The only question now is: Did CNN get a heads up from the GSSM that this was going to happen?
I know how I'm leaning on answering that question.
William Smith
ConservativeBlogger.com
