LOS ANGELES — California voters strongly favor legalizing marijuana. The state Democratic Party adopted a platform last month urging California to follow Colorado and Washington in ending marijuana prohibition. The state’s lieutenant governor, Gavin Newsom, has called for legalizing the drug.
But not Gov. Jerry Brown.
“I think we ought to kind of watch and see how things go in Colorado,” Brown, a Democrat, said curtly when asked the question as he was presenting his state budget this year.
At a time of rapidly evolving attitudes toward marijuana legalization — a slight majority of Americans now support legalizing the drug — Democratic governors across the country, Brown among them, find themselves uncomfortably at odds with their own base.