SHOULD MARIJUANA BE LEGALIZED

Well, if the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over
again and expecting different results, is it fair to say our war on drugs
is crazy? That's the position of New Mexico's two-term Republican
governor, Gary Johnson, a triathlete and former marijuana user who wants
marijuana legalized --not decriminalized, legalized--and syringes made
available for people to buy in pharmacies. However, since a government
survey shows drug use among young people actually dropped from more than 11
percent to less than 10 percent between 1997 and 1998, the latest numbers
available, isn't that a sign we may be winning the war against drugs?

With me to discuss that question, New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson, and Joe
Califano, president of the National Center for Addiction and Substance
Abuse. He's the former secretary of HEW under Lyndon Johnson.

God, you look young, Joe, for working way back then. That's 100 years ago.

Let's talk to the governor. Let's get it straight. You want to legalize
marijuana.

Governor GARY JOHNSON (Republican, New Mexico): Legalize marijuana, yes,
and adopt harm reduction strategies on these other drugs. When it comes to
heroin, you've got a heroin maintenance program in Zurich, Switzerland,
that, for example, the chief of police of Zurich, whom I talked to about
four months ago--he said, 'Hey, they adopted a heroin maintenance program
in Zurich which--basically free heroin. You're an addict, you go to a
doctor, you get a prescription, you go to a clinic, you ingest the heroin.'
He said the idea was--was that we were going to reduce property crime,
violent crime, HIV, hepatitis C, death, overdose, fewer non-violent
criminals behind bars.

He said, 'I could have not been more opposed to that when I heard about
that, nor any of my friends who are also in law enforcement.' He said, 'I'm
here to tell you that this has worked beyond anybody's wildest imagination.'

MATTHEWS: How's it work? You go into some place and--and--and sh--and
shoot up and just hang around there for a while where you can't hurt anybody?

Gov. JOHNSON: Apparently. Apparently. Apparently. And, again...

MATTHEWS: It's like an old opium den.

Gov. JOHNSON: L--like an opium den. That's my understanding, yes. But,
again, you--managing a situation. There's not overdose death not anywhere
near what it was before because, again, it's a controlled substance so you
don't have the spread of HIV, hepatitis C...

MATTHEWS: Would it bother you if you were flying on a plane as a passenger
and you knew that the pilot was zonked that weekend on--on marijuana?

Gov. JOHNSON: Well, totally. And I've always...

MATTHEWS: Or maybe a couple days before even.

Gov. JOHNSON: Well, I--I've always advocated--I've always advocated that
employers should be able to discriminate against drug users. But as a drug
user, as a mar--as a smoker of marijuana, you choose whether or not you
want to be an airline pilot or whether or not you want to...

MATTHEWS: Well, let's get an honest ...(unintelligible) joking about--a
surgeon--would you want a surgeon to have used marijuana a couple days
before he operates on you?

Gov. JOHNSON: Absolute--the obvious--I mean, obviously astronauts...

MATTHEWS: Or--or a train conductor in New York City when he ca--has to stop
the train?

Gov. JOHNSON: Well, obviously you don't want...

MATTHEWS: Or an air traffic controller? Aren't there so many jobs like that?

Gov. JOHNSON: Well, one of the problems, Chris, with--with drug testing
today is drug testing measures the presence of drugs. Certainly d--we don't
want anybody impaired using drugs. But I--I think clearly we've got
millions of people in this country who are a--who are doctors, lawyers,
engineers, scientists, entrepreneurs who have smoked pot. Again, that's not
to condone use.

MATTHEWS: Have smoked it recently, or like when they were 23 years old, or
22 years old?

Gov. JOHNSON: Well--well, or recently. I mean, this is--this is just a
fact of life. I mean, we're talking about 80 million Americans who have
smoked pot; 800,000 arrests a year for marijuana.

MATTHEWS: Would you have said this--what you're saying right now--if you
were running for re-election in New Mexico?

Gov. JOHNSON: Well, what I've said since the very beginning is the war on
drugs is a miserable failure. We can't continue to arrest and incarcerate
our way out of this. I don't have the answers. This is what I said to
start with. And, by the way, Secretary of State George Shultz called me up
about five weeks ago, and he and I basically launched into this
conversation the same way. And that was: Look, the war on drugs is a
failure. Let's talk about alternatives, but included in those alternatives
we're going to have to talk about legalization. This is George Shultz
talking to me.

MATTHEWS: So just to correct something I said before, I said that
you're--you're for legalizing hard drugs. You are for legalizing
marijuana. And your position on drugs like cocaine and heroin is what?

Gov. JOHNSON: Harm reduction--harm reduction strategies. Let's reduce
violent crime, property crime. Let's reduce the health impacts, so we're
talking about hepatitis C, HIV, overdose, death. Let's spend more money on
education...

MATTHEWS: But nothing on--nothing for carrying. No--no criminalization for
carrying. Don't put a guy away for that.

Gov. JOHNSON: Well, let's move away from a criminal model to a medical model.

MATTHEWS: Let's go to go--Joe Califano. Mr. Califano, Mr. Secretary, I
know you have strong feelings on this. What do you have to critique what
you've just heard?

Mr. JOSEPH CALIFANO (Center on Addiction & Substance Abuse): Well, one,
with respect to marijuana, marijuana is a dangerous drug. One, with
respect to the war on drugs, we've done a lot better. I mean, we have half
the people using drugs that were using drugs in the late 1970s. That's
number one.

Number two, we have experience with legalized marijuana. Alaska did it. It
was a disaster up there. They had an explosion in drug use, and they--and
they repealed that law.

Number three, marijuana is a dangerous drug, it--it--and particularly for
kids. We have 89--almost 90,000 kids in this country, teens and children,
in treatment for marijuana dependence and abuse. We have only 20,000 kids
in that age group in--in treatment for alcohol. What does marijuana
do? It sava...

MATTHEWS: It--al--alcohol is addictive, Joe. We know that. Alcohol is
definitely addictive for a lot of people, not everybody.

Mr. CALIFANO: That's right. And--and...

MATTHEWS: Is marijuana addictive, Governor, do you believe?

Mr. CALIFANO: Absolutely. The National Institute on Drug Abuse...

Gov. JOHNSON: No.

Mr. CALIFANO: ...tells you mar--wait--wait a minute, governor. The
National--I'm not--the National Institute on Drug Abuse in this country,
scientists, tell you that marijuana is an addictive substance for many,
many people.

Gov. JOHNSON: Joe, I happen to be one of the 80 million Americans who--who
have done pot. And--and it's clearly not addictive.

Mr. CALIFANO: All right. Listen, I'm one--I'm one of the hundred million
American--I'm one of the hundred million Americans who smoked cigarettes,
and I quit smoking.

Gov. JOHNSON: Well, and that's--and...

Mr. CALIFANO: But let's be realistic. It may not have been addictive to
you. But let me...

Gov. JOHNSON: And--and, again, this is not to condone the use of any of
these products.

Mr. CALIFANO: No, I understand that. But...

Gov. JOHNSON: It's just to say: Should we continue to arrest and
incarcerate this country over this issue?

Mr. CALIFANO: All right. Let's--let's--let's...

Gov. JOHNSON: No, we can't continue to do that.

Mr. CALIFANO: Let's--let's also deal with...

Gov. JOHNSON: And--and I've got another one for you.

Mr. CALIFANO: Let's--let's also--wait a minute, governor. Governor, give
me a chance to finish, please.

Gov. JOHNSON: Joe--Joe...

MATTHEWS: Give Joe a minute.

Mr. CALIFANO: Please. One, what marijuana does is savage--it--it affects
short-term memory. It affects attention span. This issue is all about
children. And anything that makes drugs more available to the children of
this country is a dangerous thing. And when we have a situation--you know,
we want people to take care of themselves. You have--you have seat belt
laws in--in New Mexico. You have helmet laws for--for motorcyclists. We
should not make these drugs more available.

As far as heroin maintenance is concerned, we have that in England. England
has the highest heroin rate in the world right now.

MATTHEWS: OK. Well, we--we have--we have things that are done in this
country that we tolerate. We tolerate abortion rights, although a lot of
people think it's wrong. We tolerate--but i--isn't this a civil liberties
question?

Gov. JOHNSON: Well, l--let's use seat belts.

MATTHEWS: I mean, seat belts--a lot of people don't like seat belts or helmets.

Gov. JOHNSON: Let--let's use--l--let's use seat--let's use seat belts as an
example, all right? First off, it's not criminal if you don't buckle
up. And in New Mexico, we have a mandatory seat belt law. A lot of states
do. Ninety-four percent of the people comply with seat belt law.
Well--well, guess what? What if only 50 percent of the people complied with
the seat belt law? Would we make it criminal? At what point would we
change the law? When 50 percent of the people weren't complying with the
law and we were spending half of law enforcement, half of
courts--half--half--half of...

MATTHEWS: Joe, would you criminalize seat belt non-use? You wouldn't do
that? I guess--I guess that's a whimsical question, right?

Mr. CALIFANO: That is--that is a whimsical question. But...

Gov. JOHNSON: Yeah, but at--but at what point would we change the law if we
criminalized it?

Mr. CALIFANO: Let--let--let--please stay on the issue of marijuana
and--and--and on the issue of--and on the issue of drugs.

Gov. JOHNSON: Well, Joe, you were talking about seat belts.

Mr. CALIFANO: We--we need to do everything we can to keep drugs out of the
hands of kids. We know that if a child gets through age 21 without
smoking, using illegal drugs or abusing alcohol, that kid is home-free. We
have shown no ability to keep the legal drugs--nicotine and alcohol--out of
the hands of our children. We have millions more kids using alcohol, which
is the number one drug problem they've got, than we have smoking
marijuana. Legalizing marijuana would open that whole field to kids. Once
you legalize, Governor, you allow all the marketing to take place, all the
guys out there that'll sell it. You've got to be realistic about that.

Gov. JOHNSON: I--I think you can make a case that just the opposite would
happen.

Mr. CALIFANO: And our kids will get deeply into that stuff.

Gov. JOHNSON: I--I...

MATTHEWS: Well, wouldn't the big cigarette companies go to marijuana to
make money?

Gov. JOHNSON: Well--well, first of all, kids will tell you...

MATTHEWS: Wouldn't they? They're already geared up. They just put
marijuana in those rolls and start putting--coming out with
cigarettes--j--marijuana cigarettes tomorrow morning.

Gov. JOHNSON: Well, first of all, I don't think it's ever going to be
legal--first--never going to be legal for kids to do marijuana; never going
to be legal to sell marijuana to kids...

Mr. CALIFANO: It's not legal for kids to smoke cigarettes; it's not legal
for kids to drink beer.

Gov. JOHNSON: Right. But you--but you've got 54 percent of the graduating
class of the year 2000 that is--that have done illegal drugs. Are we--do we
really want to put them all in mandatory rehabilitation? Do we really want...

Mr. CALIFANO: Gov--Governor...

Gov. JOHNSON: ...to lock them all up? No. And kids will tell you...

Mr. CALIFANO: Governor, if you look at the House--wait.

Gov. JOHNSON: Now let me finish, Joe. Wait. Come on now, let me finish
here. Kids will tell you that marijuana is harder to come by than--that
it's easier to come by than alcohol. And that's because alcohol is a
controlled substance. Ask kids about getting a legal prescription drug
without a prescription. A, it's impossible. Again, I'm talking about
controlling, regulating, taxing substances that right now are in the bl...

MATTHEWS: What age would you be allowed to use marijuana under your law, if
you passed it?

Gov. JOHNSON: Well, und--under mine, if I were the dictator--and, of
course, I'm not the dictator...

MATTHEWS: Right.

Gov. JOHNSON: ...but if I was, 21 years old. I'd model it...

MATTHEWS: Twenty-one?

Gov. JOHNSON: I'd model it similar to alcohol.

Mr. CALIFANO: OK. OK. And look--and look at the kids that are drinking
alcohol and drinking beer. We have--85 percent to 90 percent of the kids
in high schools in this country have had a drink. Your number of 54
percent is incorrect by the National Household Drug Survey, Governor. We're
talking about maybe 20 percent of our kids have tried drugs.

Gov. JOHNSON: Well, here--here's--here's another statistic...

Mr. CALIFANO: Wait--wait a minute.

Gov. JOHNSON: No, Chris, you've got to listen to this.

Mr. CALIFANO: Wait a minute.

MATTHEWS: Wait, let him finish.

Gov. JOHNSON: All right. All right. All right.

Mr. CALIFANO: Governor--governor, just let me finish, please. With respect
to cigarettes, we have, you know, 30 percent, 35 percent of the kids
smoking cigarettes. Now those substances are illegal, for cigarettes for
kids under--under--under 18, and in states alcohol for kids under 21. Yet,
we have millions of kids who are binge drinking, who get hooked on those
substances. Those are the most vulnerable years. I want laws and systems
and standards that help keep this stuff out of the hands of kids.

MATTHEWS: OK. . Does anybody--I'm going to ask you both a total non-moral
question, a totally non-legal question. Gentlemen, does either of you know
a successful grownup, your age, our age generally, who has succeeded in
life along their career lines and--and uses marijuana regularly? Do you
know anybody like that?

Gov. JOHNSON: Yes, I know countless--countless numbers...

MATTHEWS: Really?

Gov. JOHNSON: ...that still smoke pot and...

MATTHEWS: Really? Really? What a crowd you run in.

Gov. JOHNSON: ...and I--I deem successful. I'm not alone in this.

MATTHEWS: I think that--Joe...

Gov. JOHNSON: I'm not alone in this.

Mr. CALIFANO: I--I don't...

MATTHEWS: ...(unintelligible) from out West. I don't know them around here.

Mr. CALIFANO: I don't know...

MATTHEWS: Joe.

Mr. CALIFANO: I don't know anybody in the--in the--in the world of law I've
worked in and the world of government I've worked in and now in the world
of a foundation dealing with this problem--I do not know anyone that
regularly smokes marijuana that has been successful. So I--I--I just live
in a different world.

Gov. JOHNSON: Oh, it's just...

Mr. CALIFANO: And I--I do think--I really--I also want to drive home the
fact that it is--it is critical to say that--not to use harm reduction as a
cover for making even harder substances like heroin and cocaine more
available to people. Charlie Rangel used to...

Gov. JOHNSON: Well, ...(unintelligible)...

MATTHEWS: Wait. Let's go--let's go...

Mr. CALIFANO: When--when Mayor Lindsey...

MATTHEWS: You just turned the corner there, Joe. You just turned the
corner on the conversation. We've got to get back there. One paragraph at
a time. I'm going to ask you, Gary--Governor, it seems to me that you're
arguing a really strong case here. If you--if you legalize drugs, legalize
marijuana in--in New Mexico, would you take moral responsibility for what
happened? I mean, suppose people went out and did something when they were
stoned or--or they--they didn't do their jobs and there was...

Gov. JOHNSON: Well, look--look--look...

MATTHEWS: Would you feel responsible for what happened personally?

Gov. JOHNSON: Well, relating this to alcohol, all right?

MATTHEWS: Yeah.

Gov. JOHNSON: You--you drink alcohol. I'm going to say that that's
acceptable behavior, and let's not forget that at one point in this
country's history that was also criminal, at least the manufacture,
distribution, all right?

MATTHEWS: Right.

Gov. JOHNSON: But y--you have a drink in the bar and--and you get out from
the bar, you've had a couple of drinks...

MATTHEWS: But there was booze before Prohibition.

Gov. JOHNSON: ...you--you go--you--you go into--you go get into your
car--you just crossed over the line.

MATTHEWS: Right.

Gov. JOHNSON: That--that should be criminal. You're--you're--you
potentially can do harm to somebody else. That's the same law...

MATTHEWS: What kind of sharp...

Gov. JOHNSON: ...line we ought to draw with regard...

MATTHEWS: ...decision-making is being made by people who are stoned? They
can't decide whether to get in the car if they're stoned. They don't have
the ability to make that decision.

Gov. JOHNSON: Well--well, but a--again, Chris, you--you're--no, let's
not--let's not forget here that we've got this many people who are doing
illegal drugs.

MATTHEWS: Yeah. Right.

Gov. JOHNSON: People that smoke marijuana, for the most part, are smoking
marijuana just like others have cocktails, in the evenings.
They're--they're--you know...

MATTHEWS: I--I--I guess--I--I'm hanging around this sort of Catholic East
Coast crowd, I guess. Anyway, thank you very much, Governor Gary Johnson,
a very bold man; and Joe Califano. Thanks for coming back, Joe. Please
come back again.

Up next, all the day's political buzz with the--USA Today's Tom Squitieri
and Time magazine's Tamala Edwards. You're watching HARDBALL.

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LOAD-DATE: April 20, 2001