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   Liberty, Jobs, & Freedom: How Cannabis Became a Conservative Issue   
      
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   BRUCE BARCOTT   
      
   At a recent marijuana reform conference in Washington, DC, Rep. Tom   
   Garrett, a freshman Republican congressman from Virginia, told a room   
   full of cannabis activists that their beloved plant meant nothing to him.   
   'I don't care about marijuana. What I do care about is liberty, justice,   
   and economic opportunity.   
   Rep. Tom Garrett, (R-Virginia)   
   “I really don’t care about marijuana,” he declared.   
      
   No surprise there. Garrett, a former state prosecutor and winner of the   
   American Conservative Union’s “Defender of Liberty” award, would never   
   be mistaken for an avid dabber.   
      
   But then Garrett, 45, reversed course.   
      
   “What I do care about,” he said, “is individual liberty. What I do care   
   about is justice. What I do care about is economic opportunity.”   
      
   And that, he said, is why six months ago he introduced HR 1227, the   
   Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition Act of 2017. Garrett’s bill would   
   do just what its title says: remove cannabis from the federal list of   
   controlled substances entirely and allow states to regulate it as they   
   please.   
      
   A generation ago, Garrett’s position would have been almost unimaginable   
   for a conservative politician. At best he would have been treated as a   
   harmless, eccentric outlier, a Ron Paul for millennials. At worst he   
   might have been scorned by his own party.   
      
   Freedom Caucus member Rep. Thomas Garrett, (R-VA), right, with Rep. Mark   
   Meadows, (R-SC) speaks to reporters during a news conference in   
   Washington, DC, on Wednesday, July 19, 2017, calling on the House to   
   repeal the Affordable Care Act. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)   
   But today Garrett is a rising star in conservative circles. And his   
   public embrace of legalization is hardly eccentric. Garrett, along with   
   Republican colleagues like Reps. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), Thomas Massie   
   (R-KY), Justin Amash (R-MI), and Matt Gaetz (R-FL), have positioned   
   cannabis legalization as an issue aligned with their core conservative   
   values—and their outspokenness is allowing many fellow conservatives to   
   rethink their long-held opposition to the issue.   
      
   Consider these signs of change:   
      
   Republican support doubled. Earlier this week, a Gallup poll found that   
   51% of Republicans now support cannabis legalization—the first time that   
   support has crossed into a majority. Among Republicans, that’s a   
   whopping 9-point jump from 2016 and a doubling of support since 2010.   
   Orrin Hatch changed his mind. Hatch, the ancient senator who serves   
   Utah, one of America’s most conservative states, came out as a medical   
   marijuana advocate in dramatic fashion, giving a passionate defense of   
   cannabis research and medicine on the Senate floor last month.   
   Some conservatives are framing this as their issue. In September,   
   right-wing Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), a longtime MMJ defender, wrote   
   a Washington Post op-ed titled “My Fellow Conservatives Should Protect   
   Medical Marijuana From the Government.”   
   In red states, conservatives are pushing medical marijuana bills. Around   
   the nation, conservative legislators are introducing medical cannabis   
   legalization measures. In Georgia, Republican state Rep. Allen Peake led   
   the passage of the state’s first CBD oil law last year. Indiana’s first   
   medical marijuana bill was introduced earlier this year by Republican   
   state Rep. Jim Lucas, whose voting record scores 92% from the American   
   Conservative Union and 100% from the National Rifle Association.   
   Those events came nearly a year after the surprising results of the   
   November 2016 election. A data dive by Leafly shortly after that   
   historic vote found that conservative Trump voters in historically red   
   states and counties—places like North Dakota, Arkansas, and Florida—cast   
   their ballots overwhelmingly in favor of medical marijuana legalization.   
      
   As they have been for years, voters were ahead of politicians when it   
   came to cannabis. Even conservative voters.   
      
      
   RELATED STORY   
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   Dana Rohrabacher's right-wing bona fides allowed him to pull a   
   Nixon-to-China move on legalization.   
   Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), left, speaks next to California Lt. Gov.   
   Gavin Newsom at a news conference in support of the Adult Use of   
   Marijuana Act ballot measure in San Francisco, Wednesday, May 4, 2016.   
   (Jeff Chiu/AP)   
   Seven years ago, legalization was largely a blue issue. A 2010 Newsweek   
   poll found that 55% of Democrats supported state adult-use legalization,   
   while 72% of Republicans opposed it. In late 2017, a Gallup poll found   
   that Democratic support topped 72%, while Republican support had moved   
   from the mid-20s to 51%.   
      
   Seven years ago, 72% of Republicans opposed marijuana legalization.   
   Today, 51% support it.   
   That happened in part because legalization is moving into the mainstream   
   of conservative thought. More to the point, it’s moving into the   
   mainstream of young conservative thought. Rising Republican leaders like   
   Tom Garrett aren’t advocating in favor of legalization despite their   
   conservative values. They’re embracing the issue because of them.   
      
   One of the main tenets of modern conservatism, Garrett says, is the idea   
   that “people who aren’t hurting other people should be left alone.” And   
   cannabis is not hurting people. “I refuse to concede that the   
   recreational user is hurting anybody,” he says.   
      
      
   Republican support is up 9% in less than a year. Source: Gallup Poll.   
   There have always been rare conservative gadflies speaking up for   
   legalization. Economist Milton Friedman was for it. William F. Buckley   
   infamously sparked up on his sailboat beyond the territorial limit of   
   federal law. But their positions often came off as theoretical and   
   symbolic, not anything they’d fight for on the ground.   
      
   Legalization’s blue tinge wasn’t merely a perception issue. It was   
   reality. When Rolling Stone profiled The 10 Best Politicians on Pot   
   Reform in 2010, only two Republicans made the list—Dana Rohrabacher and   
   Ron Paul.   
      
   So what changed? Many factors:   
      
   Public opinion shifted. Medical marijuana is now “more popular than the   
   4th of July,” as national political strategist Celinda Lake said   
      
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