N.J. Gov. Chris Christie (R) described taxes on legal marijuana as “blood money” and said that states that legalize the drug “put the lives of children and citizens at risk” for financial gain, the Asbury Park Press reported Thursday.
“I’ve had many taxpayers at town hall meetings who will ask me about, why not legalize marijuana to make the taxes go a little higher?” Christie said during a ribbon-cutting ceremony at a New Jersey drug-treatment facility Wednesday. “To me, that’s blood money.”
Christie said he would not “put the lives of children and citizens at risk to put a little more money into the state coffers.”
He added that “every bit of objective data” shows that marijuana is a “gateway drug.”
“It is not an excuse in our society to say that alcohol is legal, so why not make marijuana legal,” he said. “Why not make heroin legal? Why not make cocaine legal? You know, their argument is a slippery slope.”
h/t Mediaite
