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“We’re talking about the election of the next president of the United States and it’s a hell of a lot bigger than any disagreement I’ve had with Gary in the past,” White told the Journal this week.

He resigned as secretary of the Department of Public Safety in November 1999, the first year of Johnson’s second term, citing the Republican governor’s recently ramped-up support for legalizing marijuana and other drugs.

White, who had been in Johnson’s Cabinet from the beginning and whose department oversaw the State Police, had said the governor’s position was a “major morale killer” for law enforcement officers and undermined their credibility.

In his resignation letter, he said he was torn between his loyalty and respect for the governor and his own “deeply held beliefs.”

Today, White has come around on the issue: He says he supports the legalization of marijuana if it’s regulated and taxed.

Johnson still supports legalizing marijuana – although not harder drugs – but says he would not use marijuana if he were president.

White is an investor, as well as the CEO and security director of PurLife, a medical marijuana dispensary that recently opened in Albuquerque.

“I believed what I believed at the time. … We all change. The biggest thing for me is also being a patient, somebody who understands the benefits of using medical cannabis versus consuming a steady diet of prescription drugs,” White said.

White said he has chronic pain from knee and back injuries from his time in law enforcement and the U.S. Army.

But he said his support of Johnson in the Nov. 8 election has nothing to do with marijuana.

“I watched him for five years. Gary Johnson is honest, he’s disciplined and he’s incredibly driven,” White said.

White says he considers himself an economic conservative, like Johnson, and, in his view, Trump doesn’t talk enough about curbing the role of the federal government or the danger of the $19 trillion gross national debt.

“I believe the states are better positioned to find solutions to the challenges we face and that’s one of the things that brings me to Gary,” White said.

After leaving the Johnson administration, White was a television reporter in Albuquerque, then won election as Bernalillo County sheriff in 2002 and re-election in 2006. He was the GOP nominee for the District 1 seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2008, losing to Democrat Martin Heinrich.

He left the Sheriff’s Office in 2009 to take a job with incoming Albuquerque Mayor Richard Berry as the city’s public safety director. He retired in 2011 amid scrutiny of his intervening in the aftermath of a single-vehicle crash involving his wife; a report by the city’s inspector general later concluded he didn’t interfere with police or medical personnel.