ONE-ISSUE CANDIDATE HOLDS RALLY ON MALL

Gary A. Reams is proudly and strictly a single-issue candidate.

"Marijuana prohibition has failed, has done harm and has gone too far,"
Reams said Friday in Charlottesville.

The Libertarian Party nominee for lieutenant governor said he is running
solely as a way to send a message to politicians about marijuana laws.

His candidacy is what he calls a "Reams Reeferendum."

"A vote for Gary Reams is not a vote for the Libertarian Party or for
libertarianism or even Gary Reams," the candidate said. "It is a vote for
the need to reform the marijuana laws."

Reams, 45, is a former chairman of the Libertarian Party of Virginia who
lives in Fairfax County and works as a director of quality for NEC, an
international telecommunications supplier.

A veteran of six years in the U.S. Navy as an electronics technician, Reams
said Virginia wastes a lot of time and money by arresting more than 15,000
people a year on marijuana charges, the majority for possession of the
illegal drug.

"It's not just the users who have to pay this cost" for law enforcement,
court services and jail, he said.

"It diverts law enforcement resources into going after marijuana users
instead of going after real thugs," Reams said.

Reams said he chose the lieutenant governor's race to send all politicians
a message about pot because the office "is ceremonial."

He said he would like to see Virginia join other the other states and
Canada that are endorsing the use of marijuana for medical reasons.

Reams said he is calling his campaign a referendum on pot because voters
cannot put a marijuana question up for a statewide referendum in Virginia
and this election allows voters a chance to say prohibition of marijuana
"has gone too far."

He said medical uses of marijuana should be permitted and Virginians should
be allowed to grow industrial hemp as they could until the plant was banned
more than 60 years ago.

"Here you have a plant that you can't get high from," which still is banned
by the federal government as a valuable cash crop, Reams said.

Reams is one of three candidates on the Nov.6 statewide ballot for
lieutenant governor. The others are Democrat Timothy M. Kaine, a former
mayor of Richmond, and Del. Jay K. Katzen, a Fauqier County Republican.

Kaine and Katzen said last month that they oppose legalization of marijuana.