PROGRESSIVE POT VIEWS IN CONSERVATIVE'S PAST

TORONTO - Conservative leader John Tory says he smoked marijuana as a
high school and university student, once favoured lighter sentences
for pot traffickers and even drove while "stoned."

The revelations are in a 30-year-old column Tory wrote as a student
for the Osgoode Hall Law School newspaper.

Tory told the Toronto Sun he was writing honestly about his
experiences with weed, but he hasn't used it since those early days,
adding he is "30 years older (and ) hopefully a lot wiser."

His law-student article said it was "absurd" to throw marijuana
traffickers in jail. Tory told the newspaper he still believes it is
unfair to give someone the stigma of a criminal record for simple
possession, but now believes in tougher sentences for traffickers.

The other provincial leaders, Premier Dalton McGuinty and NDP Leader
Howard Hampton, have previously admitted to experimenting with pot or
hashish as young men.