Christie Craig

A UK graduate with a radical platform is running for governor again.

Lexington native Gatewood Galbraith is notorious for his controversial goal to legalize marijuana, but this objective has not won over Kentucky citizens.

“It has been the greatest burden I have faced in the past — 30 years ago they said, ‘Galbraith you are 30 years ahead of your time.’ It has caught up with me, hasn’t it?” Galbraith said.

Galbraith completed his undergraduate degree at UK in 1974 graduated from UK Law School in 1977.

Though his platform on marijuana may have cost him past elections, his decision to run for governor of Kentucky came 10 years earlier than his marijuana crusade, on UK’s campus in 1971.

Galbraith said he was at a student demonstration outside the law school in the middle of the road when he realized he needed to learn the system. Caught between 5,000 students and 5,000 national guardsmen with live ammunition, Galbraith said he did not understand who these men with guns were and who put them there.

“I made up my mind standing on that corner, I was going to go to college and become an attorney because that will teach what the system is, and when I did that I was going to become governor, and I was going to change the marijuana laws, and I was going to take the government off the backs of the people,” he said. “That was 39 years ago, and I have gotten up everyday since then to do just that.”

Galbraith said since President Barack Obama made marijuana a states’ rights issue, he believes it is only a matter of time until it is taxed, and the economic genie is out of the lamp.

Galbraith wants to utilize the potential agricultural wealth marijuana legalization would bring to Kentucky to improve education while investing within the state. He proposes a voucher system, which would give high school graduates a chance at education for a specified profession.

“I want to give a $5,000 voucher to all high school graduates for books, tuition and fees for higher learning within the state,” Galbraith said.

He also wants to put a ceiling on in-state tuition for universities that have raised rates to excel in athletics or to become a research institution.

In a country with a dominant two party system, Galbraith believes as an independent he can provide balance between the two dominant parties and what he calls dysfunction in Frankfort.

“The leadership of both parties have their horns locked up like two elk fighting over territory, while the business of the people lays dead in the dust,” Galbraith said. “And neither party can produce a candidate that can disengage in the partisanship long enough to get the job done.”