CANDIDATE ENDORSES DRUG REFORM

'Marijuana Activist' Bufford Runs Against Radanovich.

The history of America's love-hate relationship with marijuana shows
George Washington grew hemp on his plantation.

Now there's a bong salesman running for Congress.

James "Lex" Bufford, owner of the Strawberry Alarm Clock smoke shops
in Merced and Madera, is the Democratic candidate in the 19th
Congressional District, which stretches from Fresno to Modesto.

He's campaigning on a drug-reform platform against five-term Rep.
George Radanovich, R-Mariposa, who grows wine grapes.

"If you want to call me a drug dealer, you have to call him a drug
dealer, too," said Bufford, 52, who lives in Chowchilla.

A self-described "marijuana activist" and "former medical marijuana
supplier," Bufford beat a marijuana possession for sale charge in 1992
in Madera County when the judge threw out his case for lack of evidence.

Police accused Bufford and three others with planning to sell 31/2
pounds of marijuana. Two of the others were convicted; the charge
against another person was dismissed after she went into a drug
program, according to court officials.

As an activist, "I wouldn't have any credibility if I didn't have an
arrest," Bufford said, comparing himself to Jesse Jackson and other
civil-rights protesters who have gone to jail for civil
disobedience.

"I'm not ashamed of it," he said. "I'm proud of it. It's like a
feather in the cap."

Bufford's campaign has drawn the attention and praise of pot culture
magazines. And he speaks with outrage about a recent U.S. Justice
Department crackdown on drug paraphernalia that snared pothead icon
Tommy Chong last year.

"I own a system of shops right now where John Ashcroft, the attorney
general of the United States, would like to put me in prison," Bufford
said.

He wants marijuana decriminalized, then taxed and licensed like
tobacco.

An acknowledged long shot in the heavily Republican district,
Bufford's message to get supporters to the polls is, "tune in, turn on
and turn out."

He says Radanovich is too in lockstep with the Republican agenda, and
Bufford ticks off a list of issues he would support in Congress:
providing greater access to health insurance, withdrawing troops from
Iraq, supporting stem cell research, restoring the Hetch Hetchy Valley,
building light-rail lines to Yosemite and cleaning the San Joaquin
Valley's air.

But back to marijuana -- "the 'M' word" that Bufford says makes some
mainstream Democrats nervous. Bufford remains cautious about revealing
too much.

"I'm not going to sit here and tell you I did this or I did that if it
might have been illegal," he said.

He went into the legal water-pipe trade in 1996, opening a store in
Madera. The second shop opened in 2001 in Merced, and he's starting a
record label.

Bufford said the war on drugs has been a "colossal
failure."

"It's the most expensive and longest war we've had," he said. "They've
gone after marijuana, which is relatively benign and harmless."

Attention needs to be focused on dangerous drugs such as
methamphetamine and heroin, and rehabilitation programs, he said.