SHOULD THE GOVERNMENT DECRIMINALIZE MARIJUANA?

ALAN COLMES, CO-HOST: Welcome to HANNITY & COLMES. I'm Alan Colmes.

Coming up: Did Pat Robertson put his foot in his mouth about abortion?
We'll debate it.

And later, Sean goes one on one with a football coach who was fired for
letting his team score too many points.

And golf superstar Tiger Woods spent a few minutes with my good

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEAN HANNITY, CO-HOST: Any tips you want to give me, Tiger -- I barely
break 100. I need all the help I can get! I was going to try and
discipline myself, like you did, but...

TIGER WOODS, PROFESSIONAL GOLFER: No, just stick with your day job. You're
doing great just as you are.

COLMES: Very good advice!

(LAUGHTER)

COLMES: First, our top newsmaker this Thursday: Despite the millions of
dollars poured into the war on drugs, many say it's a lost battle. Could
decriminalizing marijuana be part of the solution? An unlikely public
figure says yes.

Joining us now in Washington, the Republican governor of New Mexico, Gary
Johnson.

Governor, very nice. We've been trying to get you on the show for a while.
Thank you for being with us tonight.

GOV. GARY JOHNSON (R), NEW MEXICO: Well, again, thanks for the invitation,.
And you know, you -- you hit it on the head here, and that is, is that
we're arresting 1.6 million people a year in this country. estimated $50
billion on the drug war annually.

The fundamental question in my -- in my belief is should you go to jail for
smoking marijuana in the confines of your own home, doing no harm to
anybody, arguably, other than yourself? No.

COLMES: Well, you're -- you sound more like a Libertarian than a
Republican. I'm a liberal, and I agree with you. In a moment, you'll talk
to a conservative who doesn't. But look, Harry Browne of the Libertarian
Party has said insanity is defined as doing the same thing over and over
again and not getting the result you want and keep doing it. Our drug
billions of dollars on interdiction that doesn't work. We're incarcerating
people. You got the insane Rockefeller drug laws in New York, where you
can do 15 years for possessing small amounts of drugs. It's not the
answer, is it, Governor.

JOHNSON: Well, you hit it on the head. I mean, we've got individuals
committing murder that are getting less sentence than those individuals
that have sold small amounts of cocaine on numerous occasions. Is that
right? I don't think so. Again, I think we should look for harm-reduction
models outside of marijuana, and I think we should legalize marijuana.

And I happen to think that that's a very conservative view, that it's very
Republican to look at individual responsibility, holding individuals
accountable for their own actions. So the line I draw is, you know, you
smoke marijuana, and you go out and do harm, whether that's property crime,
violent crime, that's a crime, and you belong behind bars for that, same as
drinking. And let's not forget that at one point in this country's
history, it was illegal to distribute and manufacture alcohol.

COLMES: And marijuana was legal until 1937 in America. Would you
decriminalize all drugs or just marijuana?

JOHNSON: Well, we can certainly look at harm-reduction strategies for other
drugs. And a harm-reduction example of heroin, for example, is what's
happening in Zurich right now. Zurich has a heroin maintenance program
where you can get free heroin. You have to be an addict. You get a
prescription from a doctor. You go to a clinic, ingest the heroin at the
clinic. What has happened, though, is violent crime, property crime, HIV,
hepatitis C, overdose, fewer non-violent criminals behind bars -- all this
has happened. And by the way, this came to me from the chief of police of
Zurich, whom I met about four months ago in Albuquerque, saying that all of
law enforcement was shocked by results that they figured would be the opposite.

HANNITY: Well, and...

JOHNSON: They thought that all those statistics...

HANNITY: Then Governor...

JOHNSON: ... would be worse.

HANNITY: Am I to take what you're saying -- you're suggesting that that
would be a good thing to do here?

JOHNSON: Well, if it improves on -- the problem that we have in this
country is that we're using use as a criteria. And just for a second --
look, if you or I read tomorrow that alcohol was up by 3 percent in the
United States, would we really care? No, because we understand that
alcohol is cyclical. It's up and down. But what we would care about, is
DWI up or down, the health consequence of doing alcohol up or down. Is
domestic violence due to alcohol...

HANNITY: Governor...

JOHNSON: ... up or down? Those are the things we care about.

HANNITY: With all...

JOHNSON: Those are the -- that's the criteria we ought to apply...

HANNITY: Governor...

JOHNSON: ... to drug use.

HANNITY: With all due respect, I think this is a very irresponsible
position you're taking here, for a lot of different reasons. Do you have
any children, Governor?

JOHNSON: I sure do.

HANNITY: Would you want...

JOHNSON: And I love my children.

HANNITY: Would you want your children to use drugs?

JOHNSON: Absolutely not.

HANNITY: OK. Now, here's...

JOHNSON: But it would be irresponsible to think that my kids might not do
it, in that 54 percent of the graduating class of the year 2000 did illegal
drugs. And I don't want my kids...

HANNITY: National Institute...

JOHNSON: ... behind bars.

HANNITY: National Institutes of Drug Abuse, kids who smoke pot are 85 times
likelier to use cocaine and other hard drugs...

JOHNSON: That is absolute malarkey!

HANNITY: Well...

JOHNSON: That is total baloney!

HANNITY: You can take -- you know, you...

HANNITY: Do you still smoke pot, Governor?

JOHNSON: ... on a regular basis.

HANNITY: Are you still a drug -- you still a drug user? Do you still smoke
pot?

JOHNSON: No, sir.

HANNITY: Well, let me read from the National Institute of Drug Abuse, sir.
These are not Sean Hannity's statistics! They're their statistics! So if
you want to question their statistics, Governor, you be free! And you can
say it's a bunch of malarkey! Let me give it you again!

JOHNSON: It is a bunch of malarkey.

HANNITY: Wait a minute! Kids who use pot -- 85 times more likely to move
on to these other drugs, cocaine and heroin! It is, in fact, I quote, a
"gateway" drug! So...

JOHNSON: That is...

HANNITY: I think if you care about your kids the way I do about mine and
other parents do, you don't want them to give them the opportunity by
making it legal or decriminalizing it where they have more access to it,
which will be the fundamental result of what you advocate, which I say is
irresponsible!

JOHNSON: And what is very irresponsible and what I take great offense over
is the fact that we are arresting our kids at record rates.

HANNITY: You want -- you sound like you want...

JOHNSON: We're incarcerating this country over arguably a victimless crime.
And now we're back to smoking pot...

HANNITY: But you just made...

JOHNSON: ... confines of your own home...

HANNITY: ... an argument to legalize heroin! You said, "It's working over
here in this country. Why don't we consider it here?" I -- I think that's
reckless, Governor!

JOHNSON: The chief of police from Zurich, Switzerland, says Zurich is a
better place to live, that the harm caused by...

HANNITY: I prefer America!

JOHNSON: ... heroin has been lessened...

HANNITY: I prefer the United States of America! I'm sorry!

COLMES: We have policies that don't work, and keeping them is foolhardy.
Governor, thank you very much.

JOHNSON: It's been great being on your show, yeah.

COLMES: Thank you very much for being with us, Governor.

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach.

And later: Has Pat Robertson changed his point of view on abortion? You
decide. That's coming up on HANNITY & COLMES.

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LOAD-DATE: April 20, 2001