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Christie to the stoners of Colorado: I'm coming for you.

(AP Photo/Jim Cole)

In his latest pander to the Republican base, Gov. Christie has vowed to eliminate legalized marijuana in states like Colorado and Washington if he's elected president.



Not only is he wrong on the substance of this, because hundreds of thousands of people a year are still being arrested for marijuana and stuck with unnecessary criminal records, a ridiculous and expensive exercise. He's also a total hypocrite.



Didn't he just finish flipping on Common Core, on the grounds that we can't let the feds tell states what to do? Now, after marijuana legalization was approved by referendum in both Colorado and Washington, he wants to take the big boot of the federal government and stomp it out?



Please. We know by now that the man will say anything for votes, but it's sad that he feels so desperate to court the crazies, who hold outsized sway in the primary. Even though most Republicans don't want to legalize marijuana, a full 65 percent think such polices should be left to "each individual state government to decide."



It's only the "Reefer Madness" wing of the party that so fears being overrun by zombie potheads that it's willing to embrace what it would otherwise view as federal overreach.



Before campaign fever got the best of him, Christie said -- correctly -- that the United States locks up too many nonviolent, small-time drug offenders. But now he wants to double down on that failed war on drugs, which has already crippled the employment prospects of so many.



As President, he would enforce the federal ban on marijuana in states that have legalized the drug, against the will of voters, so we can continue treating pot like one of the most dangerous drugs, classified alongside heroin or LSD, spending billions on prosecutions, and arresting blacks three times more often than whites, though pot-smoking is equally common.



Never mind that this strategy hasn't made a dent in the overall use of marijuana in this country. Or that despite the calamity some predicted for Colorado, there's been no evidence that legalizing the drug has led to an increase in either crime or pot smoking by teenagers. Denver has, in fact, benefited from a decrease in crime rates, and shown a decline in traffic fatalities since legalizing marijuana, research shows. It has grown both tax revenue and jobs.



The best argument for legalizing pot, though, remains the utter failure of the government's war against it. The New Jersey State Municipal Prosecutors Association now supports legalizing marijuana, because these cases are such a waste of scarce resources and a drain on our court system.



As a former federal prosecutor, Christie surely knows how absurd this is, too. But if an Iowan will vote for him for president, he'd be happy to deny it.