JOHNSON SAYS FIGHT FOR NEW NATIONAL DRUG POLICY UPHILL BATTLE

Gov. Gary Johnson was preaching to the converted Saturday when he
called the war on drugs a "miserable failure," but after two years of
fighting for a new national drug policy he said proponents are still
facing an uphill battle.

"We're going to look back on this issue and recognize it as the
atrocity that it is," Johnson told 700 people attending a national
drug-reform policy conference. "The war on drugs is a miserable failure."

Johnson, a two-term Republican who has emerged as a national proponent
for the legalization of marijuana, was the keynote speaker at the
conference sponsored by the Lindesmith Center-Drug Policy Foundation.

The nonprofit group, which has offices in New York, Washington, D.C.,
California and New Mexico, says it is working for a national drug
policy based on public health, science, common sense and human rights.

While Johnson believes he's facing an uphill battle on the national
front, he said his stance on the issue has made gains in New Mexico by
getting the public to look at illegal drug use as a medical, not a
criminal, problem.

"We've gone from status quo to neutral," Johnson told reporters after
his speech, explaining that New Mexicans are generally better informed
about the nation's drug policies.

The governor, who has said he used marijuana and cocaine in the 1970s,
also discussed two measures he hopes to add to his drug-reform package
before the legislative session next winter.

Johnson said he wants to look into the issues of undercover narcotics
officers hounding illegal drug users and parolees being sent back to
prison for substance abuse.

He said almost all those arrested for using illegal drugs - with the
exception of people whose vehicles are pulled over in a traffic stop -
are taken into custody as a result of their involvement with
undercover law enforcement officials.

On the second issue, former inmates who were addicted to drugs before
and during their incarceration are being sent back to prison for drug
use, usually as a parole violation, because the corrections system
refuses to recognize drug use as a medical problem, the governor said.

"Who are we serving by putting them back in prison?" Johnson
asked.

The governor said he doesn't have statistics on either of the issues,
but his staffers are researching them.

The governor also attacked what he considers double standards in the
United States when it comes to drug policy.

Each year, about 450,000 people die from tobacco use and 150,000 die
from alcohol use, but only 10,000 people are killed by cocaine and
heroin, Johnson said.

"Wake up, America, marijuana isn't even making the list," he
said.

Even so, 800,000 million people are arrested nationwide each year for
marijuana use and of those, half are Hispanic, Johnson said.