Governor Bill Richardson just signed New Mexico’s medical marijuana bill into law. New Mexico is now the 12th state with medical marijuana. And Bill Richardson is now the first Presidential candidate ever to have signed medical marijuana legislation.

There is a lot of talk about the political risk Richardson is taking with this move. Many believe that he is taking extraordinary chances with his political career by supporting such a controversial subject. This talk is pure rubbish.

The Marijuana Policy Project reports:

Widespread Support for Medical Marijuana Throughout the Country

• A November 2005 nationwide Gallup poll showed 78% of Americans “support making marijuana legally available for doctors to prescribe in order to reduce pain and suffering.”
• Support spans age groups as well. In a November 2004 AARP poll, 72% of Americans aged 45 and older said that “adults should be allowed to legally use marijuana for medical purposes.”
• Since 1996, a majority of voters in Alaska, California, Colorado, the District of Columbia, Maine, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington state have voted in favor of ballot initiatives to remove criminal penalties for seriously ill people who grow or possess medical marijuana.
• State legislatures in Hawaii, Vermont, and Rhode Island have listened to their constituents and passed medical marijuana laws. Polls show that public approval of medical marijuana laws has increased since the laws went into effect.

The only reason it is considered risky to support medical marijuana is because the elites that propagate this belief are completely out of touch with the American people. Can you imagine anyone stating that it was politically risky to support the right to keep and bear arms?
Yet:

By a better than 2-to-1 margin — 68% vs. 28% — Americans believe that the Second Amendment gives individual Americans the right to keep and bear arms, rather than merely preserve the existence of “citizen militias.” However, when probed, 82% of Americans who say the amendment guarantees this right say that the government can regulate it. Only 12% of all Americans say that the Constitution gives Americans an unrestricted right to bear arms._(Based on the National Constitution Center Talk Back question “Does the Second Amendment protect the rights of individual gun owners?”)link

Supporting medical marijuana isn’t risky. It is compassionate.
In New Mexico, the state government will now license producers of medical marijuana and control where it will be dispensed. Sick people will get the medicine they need and Bill Richardson will show the elites on the East Coast just how wrong they are.

Way to go Governor Richardson!

Congratulations New Mexico!