Newsom picks politics of guns over pot

Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom In politics, timing is way more important than consistency. Just ask Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom. Two years ago, after voters in Washington state and Colorado legalized the recreational use of marijuana, the former San Francisco mayor became the public face of a California effort to do the same thing here. Marijuana should be available for adult use, he said, with the state setting rules and collecting taxes. Newsom’s effort seems to have worked. After the Prop. 19 legalization initiative was solidly defeated in 2010 (suggesting that it’s a bad idea to have a drug dealer as the face of a let’s-make-pot-legal drive), support for legalization has grown. Earlier this