From: matus [matus@snet.net]
Sent: Tuesday, October 30, 2001 8:21 PM
To: matus@snet.net
Subject: MFD List - Pro-legalization governor debates DEA chief

(I have previously sent articles out about New Mexico's Governor Gary
Johnson and his stance on 'the War on Drugs' This article is a short excerpt
of a debate he had with a DEA chief.  Interesting if abridged read - Mike)

Pro-legalization governor debates DEA chief
----------
   New Mexico's Governor Gary Johnson, who calls the war on
   drugs "an absolute, miserable failure," squared off against
   Asa Hutchinson, the prohibitionist chief of the Drug Enforcement
   Administration, in a debate in Albuquerque. (09/11/01)

http://www.dallasnews.com/texas_southwest/468166_nmdope_11tex.A.html

Pro-pot governor debates DEA chief

 09/11/2001

 By MATT MYGATT / Associated Press

 ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - Gov. Gary Johnson favors regulating
 marijuana - in the way that tobacco is. The head of the federal Drug
 Enforcement Administration says that would amount to a boon for
 cigarette companies.

 "If you like what the tobacco companies did in marketing to our teens and
 marketing to adults in selling their product, wait until they get a hold of
 marijuana cigarettes," Asa Hutchinson said Monday in a debate with Mr.
 Johnson.

 "If you like the lawsuits that you got going on now, wait until you see
what  the trial lawyers are able to do with suing the manufacturers of
marijuana,"  Mr. Hutchinson said.

 But Mr. Johnson said: "I think we've clearly learned from alcohol and
 tobacco. I don't foresee advertising saying, 'It's cool to smoke pot.' "

 "I certainly don't want the government in the sale and distribution,
although  if the government were to get involved in the sale and
distribution of
 marijuana, I think we would certainly have a reduction because I think they
 would screw it up enough," he said.

 Mr. Johnson said legalizing marijuana would bring new laws and new
 problems, but "those new laws, those new set of problems are going to be
 significantly less than the problems that we have today."

 "The definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over and over
 again, somehow expecting different results," he said.

 Mr. Hutchinson and Mr. Johnson - both Republican baby boomers -
 squared off at a University of New Mexico auditorium before more than
 300 people.

 "I have found that this issue has not divided Republicans and Democrats.
 There are just as many Republicans [who] disagree with me as
 Democrats," Mr. Johnson said.

 Mr. Johnson, a businessman, admits smoking pot in his youth; Mr.
 Hutchinson, a former federal prosecutor and Arkansas congressman, says
 he never tried illegal drugs, but did drink beer.

 Mr. Johnson, saying the drug war "is an absolute, miserable failure,"
 preached marijuana legalization but warned against taking drugs and
 drinking booze.

 "I believe the majority of people who smoke pot, that the majority of
people  that do drugs and don't do harm to anyone else have made a choice to
do
 that and don't belong in rehab," he said.

 "Prohibition of drugs is doing more harm than the drugs themselves. Let's
 legalize marijuana. Let's adopt harm-reduction strategies for all these
other  drugs," Mr. Johnson said.

 Mr. Hutchinson said he believes the nation's drug strategy should include a
 strong drug treatment program, education and enforcing the laws on the
 books against drugs.

 "The law is the master teacher," he said.

 "I think legalization is the wrong way to go," Mr. Hutchinson said.

 "The right way out is to educate our young people to make the right
 decision, help rehabilitate those addicts that create the demand and
 continue our effort in law enforcement and create the risk for those people
 who'd traffic in poison that comes into our society," he said.

 But Mr. Johnson said, "There are triggers that make us quit these
 substances, and I'm just saying we're far better off without having that
 trigger be the criminal justice system."

www.matus1976.com