CHESTER – After the statewide legalization of marijuana, perennial candidate Cris Ericson, of the Marijuana Party, has had to pivot to a new platform. She told The Winooski, “I was really proud when Vermont enacted my policy agenda last year, in spite of the fact that I never won any of the offices I ran for. But that left me looking for something else to run on in the next election cycle. So I decided to drive around Vermont talking to our fellow citizens to see what was important to them.

“Most of them wouldn’t talk to me, muttering something about my hat, or just walking right on by. But my drive around Vermont was really revealing, and it became obvious what I need to be fighting for next.” Ms. Ericson then pulled out one of her campaign signs, which read, “Undisgusting Gas Station Bathrooms for Vermont!”

“I can’t tell you how many times I needed to go, and every place I stopped was just disgusting. The State Rest Areas are nice, but there are only, what, three or four in the whole state? Who can hold it that long?”

Professor Emeritus Eric Davis of Middlebury College commented that the clean bathrooms policy may have a substantial constituency, but that it may skew to out-of-staters rather than Vermont voters. “The last polling we did indicates that Vermonters rarely use gas station bathrooms, both because they are disgusting, but also because most of them went before they left the house.” He thinks that substantial majorities of Republicans, Democrats and Berniecrats would favor the undisgusting bathrooms policy, but he is not sure that it is enough of a motivating factor for Ericson to win any of the offices she is seeking. “There is also the enforcement problem,” he notes, and that “undisgusting is in the eye of the beholder.”

Undeterred, Ericson plans to gather enough signatures to appear on the ballot for six or more statewide races. “Ever since pot was legalized, I have a clearer and clearer sense that I will win, and I look forward to the day when I can stop at any gas station and use the bathroom without having to close my eyes and nose first!”