GOP senator: Pot could help Colorado’s image
Sen. Cory Gardner during a hearing. (Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP)
Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., told Yahoo News on Wednesday that legal pot, “done properly,” could be a boon to the Centennial State’s image. Gardner also pressed Republican presidential candidates to put policy above personality in the debate to take place in his home state.
“We need to start seeing some of the planks of the policy laid out a little bit more clearly, move away from the personalities and the politics and start getting into the specifics of how we can grow the economy,” Gardner said in an interview broadcast on Sirius XM’s Channel 124, known as POTUS.
Gardner, who planned to attend the debate, said he also hoped local issues, especially related to the environment, would get an airing. Candidates should talk about “restoring the health of our forests, protecting our water and growing our energy,” he said.
While some question the value of holding so many debates so far in advance of the first actual tests of electoral organization, Gardner said they can be vital for giving voters “confidence in the competence of the [eventual] nominee.”
Voters are watching how the nominees conduct themselves “throughout the debates, how they respond to questions that they have a plan, that they can lay out a thoughtful articulate vision for why this country is better with them being president of the United States versus Hillary Clinton — who I believe will absolutely be the nominee of the Democratic Party,” he said.
Environmental issues aren’t the only ones that stand out when talking about Colorado. The state’s decision to legalize marijuana, and the effects of that policy, regularly make headlines.
Asked whether a state historically known for the Rocky Mountains, skiing and hiking might be increasingly known for its pot laws, Gardner acknowledged that some people worry about the state’s image. But he sounded an optimistic note.
“I think there’s a concern that has been expressed by some including public officials that are very, very aware of the image that it could lead to,” the senator told Yahoo News.
But he said there is reason to focus on “the image that it could help create, the positive image, particularly on some of the medical impacts and the medical side of things.”
Gardner pointed to legislation he has co-authored to ease access to certain hemp extracts that have been shown to help sharply reduce seizures, notably due to epilepsy, in children. One such product, “Charlotte’s Web,” is named for the Colorado girl who dramatically reduced her number of monthly seizures.
“Done properly, done correctly, I think we can avoid that consequence,” he said, referring to the state getting a bad reputation. “But I hope that other states will wait and see what happens in Colorado and learn from us.”
Gardner was one of the first guests on the inaugural “Yahoo News on POTUS” show in December 2014 as a senator-elect hoping to move out of a bleak, windowless basement workspace he described as “the exact opposite of Colorado” into a proper Senate office, a process he worried would take months. He was also learning the legislative ropes in the upper chamber after starting his career in the House of Representatives.
Asked what had surprised him in his first year, Gardner replied: “How long it took to get out of our basement office.” The new workspace “has windows and everything,” he joked.
Gardner sidestepped a question about whether it was odd to see so many of his Republican Senate colleagues running for president.
“As the only senator not running for president, it can feel a little bit lonely at times,” he joked.
But while campaign pressures and media portrayals can reduce candidates to “automatons, people who are just robotic,” their colleagues can vouch for their humanity.
“You’ve seen them work, you know what they care about,” he said. “They are just real people.”
