Pot and Lone Star beer are things we trust

Country legend, novelist, and columnist Kinky Friedman, currently in a three-way tie for second place in the Texas governor's race, has taken a stand in favor of legalizing marijuana in the Lone Star State. Like many of his positions, Friedman's pot plank is all over the place:

"I'm not talking about like Amsterdam," he said.

"I agree with (U.S. Sen.) John McCain that we've lost the drug war," Friedman said. "Drugs are more available, they're cheaper.

"It's clear to me, if you've lost the war on drugs then you've got to go some other direction. You can't keep banging your head against the wall."

Friedman's comments on marijuana came one week after he created a controversy in Houston when he said the musicians and artists who fled Hurricane Katrina had returned to New Orleans, but the "crackheads and thugs" remained. He later added that many evacuees who remain in Houston are good citizens.

The candidate said Wednesday that crack "is a different deal" from marijuana.

"Marijuana is a very different situation. It's not like crack and (other) drugs that create violence," he said.

Friedman is the only one of the top four candidates in the race favoring decriminalization. The other independent and the Democrat (both of whom, like Friedman, are polling at 18 percent, though Rasmussen has Friedman dropping below that number and the other independent gaining), as well as the Republican (33 percent and steadily dropping, per Rasmussen) have supported keeping the lethal gateway drug illegal.

Courtesy of Fred Lummis.