Chris Christie had a very mixed political week, which started with a viral video of him describing losing an extremely successful friend to drug abuse that was roundly well-received, but ended with him being tossed from the main stage at the next GOP debate for low poll numbers.
Often seen as one of the more prohibitionist presidential candidates on drugs, Christie was pressed on his exact drug policies, as the viral video and his response to the loss of his friend seemed to indicate an extreme empathy with users and a possible support for decriminalization.
“My larger point is this is a disease,” Christie said on “Fox News Sunday” with host Chris Wallace. “For the addicts, the people who are the small-time users … we need to give them treatment.”
“We need to think differently about this, but it’s also why I’m opposed to drug legalization,” Christie said. “We have to have more of this, not less of it. We can’t be sending missed signals.”
Wallace then pushed back at Christie, who is fifth in the Washington Examiner‘s presidential power rankings.
“Ok, but, critics note that you have opposed building more state drug treatment centers in New Jersey. They note that in 2013, only ten percent of people seeking drug treatment in New Jersey could be accommodated … isn’t there a contradiction there?”
“More people are getting drug treatment today in New Jersey than ever before,” Christie retorted. “We have twenty-one drugs courts in all twenty-one of our counties.”
“When I sat there as the Governor of New Jersey, at his funeral,” Christie says in the original video, “and looked across the pew at his three daughters — sobbing — because their dad is gone. There, but for the grace of God, go I. It can happen to anyone. So we need to start treating people in this country, not jailing them.”
