At a press conference held at Keene State College on Wed., Feb. 12, N.H. Republican Senator Andy Sanborn was asked if he had ever tried marijuana. His response was, “Yes.”
“I’m not anti [marijuana] at all. I don’t believe government should be in charge of the legalization of marijuana. I don’t believe the government should be regulating it, wholesaling it, manufacturing it, distributing it, taxing it,” the senator stated.
Sanborn also spoke about the Affordable Care Act and various bills he is sponsoring in the 2014 N.H. legislative sessions.
Sanborn, who was first elected to the New Hampshire State Senate in 2010, and is running for re-election in 2014, serves District 9 of N.H. Sanborn is a member of the Capital Budget and Health and Human Services committees.
The senator is also chair of the Commerce Committee, according to Project Vote Smart. Sanborn has made recent public opinions opposing both House Bill 492, which would move towards legalizing marijuana in the state of N.H., and the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.
The press conference was held during a Public Affairs Reporting course; a journalism class held in Media Arts Center Room 160.
Early in the press conference, Sanborn, who spoke much about his intent to help small businesses, was asked by a student in the course, “Are you aware that with these small business dispensers in Colorado, some have been showing 125 percent growth in under a week? Given that, how exactly can you be against the possession of cannabis if it’s a seven-billion-dollar-a-year industry?” Sanborn replied, “Whoever said I was against it?” before explaining that his views on marijuana legalization were separate from his views on N.H. House Bill 492.
Vanessa Brooks / Equinox Staff
According to the N.H. General Court’s amended analysis, this bill would legalize personal use of up to one ounce of marijuana by individuals who are 21 years of age or older. The bill, “authorizes the licensing of marijuana wholesale, retail, cultivation, and testing facilities.” The bill would also impose a tax on the sale of marijuana.
Sanborn then shifted to another topic and asked, “Let’s talk about the elephant in the room, shall we?” The elephant Sanborn referred to was the regional and national coverage after an email conversation between a college student and himself was released. The email exchange, as published on The Joint Blog, allegedly began with a letter from a college student, who wrote to the senator in favor of marijuana legalization.
The student, going by the name of Michael Maly, wrote, “Dear Senator Sanborn, As I am sure you are aware, the issue of marijuana prohibition has been a widely debated issue in American politics. The tide seems to be shifting and states around the nation are passing decriminalization bills and some are even approving full recreational legalization. Uncharacteristically, New Hampshire seems to be behind the pack when it comes to this issue specifically…”
According to the blog post, Maly went on explaining why the punishments for marijuana do not, “fit the crime.” The student’s email concluded with, “Your job is to represent the people of NH not your personal beliefs, it’s time to listen to the people.”
Sanborn’s alleged email response, also posted on The Joint Blog, stated, “Thanks for your email and thoughts, although I may ask that you consider that last sentence. I’m guessing you don’t know much about me, my values and what I have been working on in the legislature. Frankly, your suggestion that I do not listen shows ignorance and I find it insulting. There sure is one way to insure a legislator votes against your wishes and that is to insult them…I’m thinking if I call the [organization you received a scholarship from] and ask their opinion on legalization, they may have a different opinion (not to mention may be asking you for their scholarship money back…).”
The email interaction, as posted on The Joint Blog, concluded with Sanborn stating, “I may suggest you first take the time to actually read the legislation, understand it and it’s total ramifications before you comment on it as the bulk of your argument is not considered in it and it makes you look like nothing more than a college freshman who just wants to get high at any cost.”
The Joint Blog’s post displaying the conversation was later referenced in an article from The Boston Globe, headlined with “N.H. legislator threatens constituent who wants pot legalized.” The Joint Blog states on the page of the posted email exchange, “We received this conversation from a reader, who was ‘shocked’ at how a senator in New Hampshire responded when he contacted him to support cannabis decriminalization.”
When asked about the email exchange during the KSC press conference, Sanborn said, “I know who sent me the email. I did have an email conversation with someone. You never saw all of it. I also know that this person has made representations which I think are very, very wrong. But because there are other people involved, which you don’t know about, I’m not saying anything public about it.”
“Sometimes you have to take the heat, knowing what you’re doing is right. Even though the email was wrong, was incomplete, the person’s not real and I am known in the state as one of the guys that most promotes liberty. It kind of got out of control,” Sanborn said.
Sanborn then pivoted to providing his advice for journalists.
The senator stated, “As journalists, I think it’s important that, when people put pen to paper, they should always consider that maybe there is another side to the story. Especially those who know that I have such a belief in liberty.”
Sanborn continued, “That [email response] would be very uncharacteristic of me. People who don’t know me, or people who have a different value set, or people who are trying to make a different statement, more latched onto it [the conversation]. You see that the liberty movements in New Hampshire who are pro-legalization have never said a word. It only became outsiders,” the senator said.
Despite his lack of support for HB 492, Sanborn explained to those at the press conference that this bill was recognized as a “defining point” in the liberty movement in New Hampshire.
Regardless of its “defining point,” Sanborn said, “This bill specifically looks towards government to become the manufacturer of dope, to become the wholesaler of dope, to become the warehouser of dope, to become the distributor of dope, to become the licenser and then they tax it and spend that money, not cutting the other taxes that offset their government, but to make government bigger.”
“Take marijuana out of the picture. If you believe in liberty, is that something that anyone—that true liberty people—would support?” Sanborn added, “My value of liberty isn’t to raise your taxes, it isn’t to allow government to be more restrictive into your personal life,” Sanborn said.
Sanborn stated, “I think virtually everyone wants to have more freedom. The question, really, is how do we do that?”
Sanborn explained that his views on liberty contradicted bills such as HB 492. When Sanborn was asked to describe his perception of liberty, the self-described, “traditional New Hampshire Yankee,” stated, “When I think about liberty, I think about personal freedom, which is combined with personal responsibility. That common sense is the most important virtue that we can have. Treat others as you would want to be treated yourself. You look to yourself to solve the problems first, and we don’t look to government to solve them.”
In the case of HB 492, Sanborn suggested, “The bill should have gone to a straight decriminalization bill—reduced penalties on people who carry an ounce of marijuana.” The senator expanded, “One to two years from now, all of a sudden that society will recognize that nothing bad happened. Then, maybe the amount gets increased for a year or two.” Sanborn concluded, “Years later they’ll let you grow a few plants. There you go, you’ve got legalization without government. That’s not what 492 did.”
“Any of you that are willing to give up economic freedom for the perception of limited personal freedom deserve neither. Are you so willing to give up economic freedom for your government to smoke dope, not understanding the level of regulation you’re going to have to go through in order to smoke? You deserve neither, because I think you get neither at the end of the day,” Sanborn added about HB 492.
The topic of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) also arose at the conference. The ACA is also known as Obamacare. Sanborn, who is not in favor of the ACA, said, “Every piece of legislation has something good in it and something bad in it. It is inappropriate for the press or politicians to say all good or all bad—especially when it becomes really controversial and complicated like the ACA is.” Sanborn added, “There are things in there that I think should have happened without the ACA. In general, I think, at the end of the day, the ACA was bad public policy.”
“The President came out yesterday and did his 27th executive order to push off implementation. Never in our history have we seen one bill get, to date, 27 individual ‘press the stop’ buttons,” Sanborn said. The senator concluded that the ACA was, “The antithesis of what I believe in philosophically about capitalism, about free markets, about free enterprise. It’s a glaring example of a government that doesn’t know how to run a business and doesn’t understand it, trying to change economic and health policy in our state—not a good role. This will go down in history as the most damaging thing that’s ever happened to our state. Not that there are not good things in it, but I mean, it is going to hurt people. It is going to cost people more than they can afford.”
Other questions covered many different bills ranging from horse ownership and property laws to bills relating to businesses and property taxes.
Before the conference concluded, Sanborn was brought back to the topic of marijuana legalization. The senator encouraged the journalism students to look into what he thought were the “core challenges” with legalization when researching it. Sanborn stated that one of these “core challenges” was that marijuana is still listed as a Schedule 1 drug. Sanborn explained, “Back when the federal government made the decision that they wanted to make it illegal, they essentially classified it as a more dangerous drug than heroin or any or morphine or any other opioids.” Because of this categorization, Sanborn explained that it is illegal to test thresholds and strains of the drug.
Sanborn emphasized there is a “hypocrisy of government,” as he stated, “The federal government grows dope. There’s, I think, seven people that they grow dope for. In fact, one of them came up and spoke when we were doing the marijuana fight…On one hand, the federal government says ‘It’s a horrible drug and it’s Schedule 1 and everything. But, that guy right there, we’re going grow it and we’re going send it to him every week in a Coke can.’ The guy, he’s an investment banker and he’s brilliant. He walks around with his little tin of government supplied joints. It’s hilarious.”
Sanborn continued, “He actually smoked in the State House. He went down to the smoke room, again hypocrisy of government, right? Why is the only public building in the state of New Hampshire that has a smoking room, is the State House? I’m trying to shut that down every day. It’s not that I’m for or against smoking, it’s the hypocrisy of government. Don’t tell people they can’t smoke, and then we get to keep our own smoking room.”
As the conference concluded, Sanborn said to the Public Affairs Journalism class, “If I can give you guys a word of advice, it is that there are always two sides to every story. Decide if you want to report the facts or who you want to be. Do you want to be that ‘gotcha’ politician and be that person, or do you want to interview people on what happened?” Sanborn concluded, “I think we need to get back to disagreeing without being disagreeable. We need the help of you guys to help get politicians back on point of how to solve problems.”
The press conference was held by Ph.D. Marianne Salcetti’s Public Affairs Reporting course. Salcetti stated to Sanborn at the beginning of the press conference, “These are some of my best and brightest here, who are studying state government and have been doing a lot of research on different bills.”
Pam Bump can be contacted at pbump@keene-equinox.com
