Stoltz - Up in Smoke?

I can't recall ever having seen a local candidate admit to using marijuana before, so this is a first. Not that I think using marijuana is particularly a big deal in and of itself. Its not personally my thing, but if someone else wants to hit the sticky-icky I really don't care. If they manage their lives and careers and it doesn't harm or impact anyone else, I don't have a problem with it and its not really any of my business.

Smoke all you want. Puff, puff, pass.

Do you boo-boo.

If you're a marijuano, as long as I don't have to smell you, I don't give a damn. If I do have to smell you, then better smoke good stuff because skunk weed stinks and every marijuano I know - and I know a lot - is apparently nose-blind.

If you're running for office its a different story. You are making decisions for other people. You gotta be honest with voters. A lot of bad decisions are made when people are high.

Mostly bad decisions about food.

On a serious note, I think we need reform in our drug policies. I think weed should be legal and taxed in the same way cigarettes are taxed and regulated. There's no reason our jails should be filled with non-violent drug offenders.

The city of El Paso has a hiring process that includes passing a drug test.

Why is this important?

Because if someone is a user and is a member of council, I think they have an obligation to be honest that they use, or abolish the policy of having a drug screening as part of the hiring process. One of the two.

I bring this issue up because of this instagram post by District 6 candidate Eric Stoltz. He's not actually using in the picture, so I don't know definitively that he's a marijuano, but he appears to admit it in the hashtags.

"Hightimes" "munchies" and "blown" are all weed references. My brother is a marijuano, so I know what I'm talking about.

Unless Stoltz is gonna pull a Kavanaugh and say that those hashtags mean something else, this is a pretty obvious admission to being baked and I'm not talking about that chocolate cake.

Its a pic from 5 years ago, but at 25 it wasn't all that long ago for him. When young people run for office the biggest hurdle they have to overcome with voters is are they mature enough to represent a community? He posted a pic of him flipping the bird, which is also not something that is illegal or wrong by itself.

But it is stupid. Real stupid.

Its one thing to be immature and dumb, and especially with the accessibility of digital media these days, its common for dumb mistakes to be forever recorded for posterity.

Kavenaugh is much luckier than Stoltz in that sense.

But its another to not have the sense to remove things like that when you run for office. Come on man, seriously this is the quality of your decision-making?

I don't know what it is with candidates and their political death wishes lately of self-inflicted wounds with bad pictures they post on social media but how many times do you have to witness pendejadas like this before you learn to be smarter about what you post?

This is a bigger mistake than Haggerty's clown nose pics or even Stoltz's middle finger pic. This is one that I think media will probably scrutinize.

The question media and the people will have is if he's still using or intends to use if elected?

If not, when was the last time he got high?

I think these are important questions to ask Stoltz. Voters have a right to know if he is still rippin' hits from that bong, because I don't think voters want anyone making half-baked decisions on their behalf when that person is baked, anymore than they want someone who is drunk making decisions on their behalf.

If you own your own business, are an executive, or a construction worker, I don't care if you're 25 and still live with your parents, and get high all day while eating a bag of Doritos. If your own parents don't care, then why should I?

But I DO care if someone is high while making decisions on my behalf. Just like I DON'T want someone drunk making decisions for me either. That is where I think the scrutiny will come in to play, because I've never seen another local candidate publicly admit to using marijuana.

Hell, pics of elected officials or candidates drinking have ended up in campaign mail pieces, so the fact that this is the first time I've ever seen a candidate admit to smoking marijuana will likely be newsworthy.

These kinds of public admissions of marijuana use also underscore another really bad part of our current drug policy. His dad is in law enforcement. He very likely has arrested people for possession of marijuana. Probably a lot of people his son's age.

I can't think of a better way to underscore that we need drug law reform than the image of a guy making an arrest for possession of marijuana and his own son is well, dealing with weed cravings by eating a chocolate cake.