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and then get smacked down by the feds. good luck with that.
By MICHAEL GRACZYK, Associated Press Writer
AUSTIN, Texas - Kinky Friedman says he favors legalizing marijuana to keep nonviolent users out of prison. If Texas elects him governor, he says, he'll try to get locked-up pot users released to make room for more violent criminals. "I think that's long overdue," Friedman told The Associated Press in an interview Wednesday. "I think everybody knows what (U.S. Sen.) John McCain said is right: We've pretty well lost the war on drugs doing it the way we're doing it. Drugs are more available and cheaper than ever before. What we're doing is not working."
Friedman, the often irreverent singer, entertainer and mystery writer, is running as an independent in a bid to unseat Republican Gov. Rick Perry, and he's getting some serious attention.
He said he'd take a closer look at the use of the death penalty in Texas, wants to clean house on the state's board and commissions and would dump public school assessment tests, even if it costs the state federal money.
On the death penalty, he said he would be more liberal with the governor's authority to grant a one-time 30-day reprieve to condemned killers.
"I would be careful killing a guy," he said. "I think there are people who need to die, but the question I've asked mostly is: When was the last time we've executed a rich man in Texas?"
He bristled at the criticism heaped on him after he called some Hurricane Katrina evacuees in Houston "crackheads and thugs."
Friedman said Wednesday that his plan to give $100 million to Houston to hire more police "was not in any way racist."
"How can you possibly regret that, telling the truth?" he asked. "I am not a racist, I am a realist. In looking at the statistics, I know that 20 percent of the homicides in Houston have been committed by the element in the evacuee population.
"I never said what color their skin was. I never said all evacuees are crack dealers or crackheads. I'm smarter than that."
Also in the race for governor are Democrat Chris Bell, Libertarian James Werner and another independent, Carole Strayhorn, the state comptroller who won that office as a Republican.
As for Friedman, he said he doesn't like being called a politician.
"I don't mind being called a flip-flopper," he said, a description Perry's campaign has placed on him. "I think we actually could use a flip-flopper as governor because a flip-flopper is a human being open to change, and God knows change is what we need now."
He acknowledged that the Texas governor's authority is limited compared with executives in other states but said he would use the bully pulpit to cajole legislators. He doesn't trust them, he said, adding: "I do not trust the media either."
"Right now the lobbyists are leading us. We have a lack of leadership, a vacuum," he said.
One of the Texas governor's few powerful roles is in appointing state board members, and Friedman said he would replace as many as he could, including regents at the University of Texas and Texas A&M.
"You clean house," he said. "You get the old farts out of there. You put a bunch of young people in and you put a bunch of people who care about Texas. It's pretty simple."
If he wins - most polls show Perry leading in the race but not running away with it - Friedman said one of the first calls he'd make as governor would be to Robert Muhammad, head of the Nation of Islam in Houston, who he said "the Lord put in my path at the Austin airport earlier this year."
"He's a very visionary man," Friedman said. "You would think we're at opposite poles, but we're not. That's the guy I would tap. I would tap him to help us get those gangsters and thugs and crackheads out of there."
http://www.woai.com/news/local/story...D-08D92046C6D1
and then get smacked down by the feds. good luck with that.
Might make the "one tough Grandma" chill a bit!
Kinky musta been watching last season's The Wire.
political forum forum
Or Chris Duels message board!
he's got my vote
The money wasted on jailtime and trials for weed offenders is sickening.
Legalize!
Drug dealers of Weed will be pissed and jobless. HAHA
damn I love me some Kinky. if only pot didn't give me hives.
does your little sister get hives too?
i don't know yet she's a pot virgin.
and she's 19 now.
she had surgery last week on her wrist... i'm sure she could use some for medicinal puroses.
pretty hot right there
I've heard that *some* pot users carry loaded Glocks around in their car with them.
My sister-in-law was given "pot" in a pill form to increase her appe e.
I know if I ever get that sick I'm going to fire one up.
I was voting for him before I heard this, now i am going to campaign for him.
I was voting for him before I heard this, now i am going to campaign for him.
Heh, if he would actually do it, or even attempt to do so, I would too.
Criminalizing pot is foolish.
that is the best invention ever. No worry about cancer, no worry about coughing, no worry about rolling or even getting caught by cops.
and the high is better than most pot
the feds...that raich case didnt do to the weed trade in cali. here's the scoop:
SC said that medical marijuana law was uncons utional as applied to federal law enforcers. however, the fed law categorizing pot as a class 1 controlled substance controls federal law enforcers (i.e. the fbi and atf) but based on the anti-commandering principle, that federal law does NOT affect state law enforcers. so the law on the books in cali is that cali cops can't bust for licensed pot possession. the law on the books in washington is that federal cops can bust for pot possession in cali. but functionally, the fbi isn't going around busting mother ers with an ounce or two or ten sitting around...the fbi is busting traffikers, not users. your safe as long as you dont deal in volume
raich was about this cancer-having who got the local conservative law enforcement pissed at her who in turn ratted her ass out to the feds. if she hadnt flaunted her ambiguous rights around all over the place, she would have been fine.
same thing here in texas. IF kinky actually gets elected and follows through on this promise, im gonna start smokin that ...no local cop can bust you, and no fbi agent will care enough to put down all their homeland security terrorist and illegal immigrant hunting to bust some guy puffing down on a phat bowl
Withcheese, wtf is up with your sig
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/prisons.htm
According to the US Justice Department, in 2002, 21% of inmates in US prisons and jails were in because of drugs.
Oh my, he's really trying to get that UT vote, what with our #13 ranking for pot in the nation's top party schools list.
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