NEW YORK-GOVERNOR ANDREW CUOMO IS GETTING SOME UNUSUAL SUPPORT FOR HIS CALL TO DECRIMINALIZE SMALL AMOUNT OF MARIJUANA!

By Mike Groll, AP—-

They say politics makes for strange bedfellows, so here’s another example.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat and possible 2016 presidential candidate, is getting kudos from Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson for his call to decriminalize open possession of small amounts of marijuana.

Cuomo’s proposal is a “welcome bit of sanity,” says Johnson, a former two-term Republican governor of New Mexico. Still, Johnson believes it would be better to legalize marijuana outright in order to lift the burdens on police officers and the courts.

Cuomo is also supported by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, an independent, who says the Democrat’s proposal “strikes the right balance.”

Possessing small amounts of marijuana “in public view” in New York is a misdemeanor that resulted in 50,000 arrests in the city last year, according to the New York City Police Department. Cuomo’s proposal would help cut down on the number of arrests, but you still couldn’t smoke pot in public.

A record 50% of Americans say marijuana use should be legal, according to a Gallup Poll from last October. Support for such a plan has moved up steadily since 1969, when only 12% of Americans said pot should be legalized.

Cuomo made his proposal Monday at a news conference in Albany. There are only three weeks left in New York’s legislative session.