The United States Medical Marijuana Chamber of Commerce on Monday officially endorsed President Barack Obama for a second term rather than supporting Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson.
Unlike Obama, Johnson has said he believes marijuana should be legalized.
"I like Gary Johnson but in my opinion, he doesn't have a chance to win the presidential election," Thomas L. Leto III, the president of the U.S. Medical Marijuana Chamber of Commerce, told Raw Story in an email.
The endorsement baffled many in the marijuana legalization movement, who questioned whether the Medical Marijuana Chamber of Commerce was even a legitimate organization.
Marijuana legalization advocates have criticized Obama for his administration's crackdown on medical marijuana facilities in California and Colorado, where medical marijuana is legal. But Leto said that many of those dispensaries broke the law and deserved to be shut down.
"I am all about Justice and Order and that is what I bring to the table," he explained. "I have no tolerance for 21 year old drug dealers trying to form businesses when they have no idea how to properly run a company. This industry lacks the professionalism that is needed for the Feds to legalize and rightfully so. Show me a man who is willing to be an open book and I bet the Feds will not shut him down."
Leto said Obama understood the positive impact that marijuana legalization could have on the economy and had discouraged the prosecution of medical marijuana patients. Romney, on the other hand, "just doesn't get it."
Seventeen states and the District of Columbia have legalized medical marijuana.
[Marijuana leaf via Shutterstock]
[Ed. note: Updated after publication]
