Our Antiweed Governor Better Take Note Downstate Is Also Going To Pot

Governor Rauner made a royal ass of himself when he went on radio station WJPF in Carterville, “the voice of southern Illinois,” earlier this week.

          And no, I’m not talking about the part where Rauner vowed to keep the state out of education so the locals can control their schools.

“I do not support legalizing recreational marijuana. I think it’s a big experiment on young people’s brains and development. We should study what’s going on in Colorado and California,” Rauner said. “Even [Colorado governor John] Hickenlooper says, ‘Bruce, you guys in Illinois, you ought to wait awhile and study what’s going on here. ‘Cause it ain’t all good.’”

          Actually, I suspect Rauner’s umbrage at legalization is like him saying “ain’t” and dropping gs—his awkward attempt to connect with the common downstater, if such a creature exists. 

          We don’t smoke marijuana in Muskogee
          We don’t take our trips on LSD
          We don’t burn our draft cards down on Main Street
          We like livin’ right and bein’ free . . .

          By the way, Haggard—who died in 2016—changed his tune on marijuana years ago. “At the time I wrote ‘Okie From Muskogee,’ I didn’t smoke,” he told an interviewer from Men’s Journal in 2015. “I thought it was responsible for the flower children walking around with their mouths open. It was not so. But if a guy doesn’t learn anything in 50 years, there’s something wrong with him.”