THE WAR ON DRUGS: WINNABLE BATTLE OR LOST CAUSE?

BOBBIE BATTISTA, HOST: Do drug addicts like Robert Downey, Jr. belong in a
hospital or in prison?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARRY MCCAFFREY, FORMER DIRECTOR, NATIONAL DRUG POLICY: We're still looking
at a U.S. society in which 6 percent of us last month using illegal drugs.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BATTISTA: The U.S. spends more than $19 billion a year fighting the war on
drugs trying to keep them out of this country. And yet...

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ERIC STERLING, POLICY ANALYST: The availability of drugs for teenagers has
never been easier. The prices of drugs on the street are as low as
ever. The purity is greater than ever. We're failing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BATTISTA: President Bush says the problem is about demand. Americans
consume a quarter of the world's illegal drug production, and according to
some estimates, most of those brought to justice are low-level street dealers.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They're not going to get the kingpins because they've
got the money and they walk. For some reason, they just -- they never get
into trouble.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BATTISTA: Critics suggest it's been a war waged against U.S. citizens, sick
citizens who need medical help, citizens forced to forfeit property without
due process.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everybody has a difference of opinion whether it's a
winnable war. But it's a war we can't stop fighting.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BATTISTA: The question is: Are we fighting it on the wrong front?

Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to TALKBACK LIVE. Street drugs are
getting cheaper while the war on drugs needs constant injections of U.S.
tax dollars. What's wrong with this picture?

Colombian President Andres Pastrana has been meeting with President Bush
today. He wants more money for social programs and police. The U.S.
already provides $1.3 billion for military assistance in Colombia's attempt
to plow under its lucrative narcotics trade.

Here to talk about the war on drugs today with us is Nick Navarro, former
narcotics agent and onetime sheriff of Broward County, Florida. He is
currently head of the Novarro Group, a private security firm.

Also with us Mike Gray, author of "Drug Crazy, How We Got Into This Mess
and How We Can Get Out." He is chairman of a reform organization called
Common Sense for Drug Policy.

Welcome to both of you.

MIKE GRAY, AUTHOR, "DRUG CRAZY": Thank you.

NICK NOVARRO, FORMER FEDERAL NARCOTICS AGENT: Thank you.

BATTISTA: Mike, let me start with you. Why are we not winning this war?

GRAY: Well, it's unwinnable. I mean, we have heard in -- I'm sorry, you're
getting a feedback here on the sound. We're -- we learned this lesson once
before during alcohol prohibition. And prohibition simply doesn't
work. What it will do is create violent criminals but it will not stop the
drug trade. And that's what we're witnessing.

BATTISTA: Nick -- we'll fix that problem for you, Mike so it won't be so
irritating.

GRAY: Thank you.

BATTISTA: Nick, in the meantime, where is all of this money going?

NOVARRO: Well, right now, I think most of the budget has been utilized on
the eradication, interdiction and enforcement, although a lot of money has
been given out lately to education and rehabilitation. We need to enforce
all those five areas if we are going to continue in this war that we've
been fighting for so long right now.

BATTISTA: You think that we should be sending more money into Colombia?
NOVARRO: Well, again, you know, this has been something that every year,
the budgets have been increasing. So have been the drug trade. When I
started as a federal narcotics agent, the budget that we were working with,
it was less than $5 million a year, and there was only 125 agents for the
entire world to work the narcotic trade that we were fighting in those
days. Times have changed. The gluttony has grown. More and more people
are addicted. More new substances are in the market. So this war is a
never-ending war, and we must continue to fight it. I know that we may not
win. I'm already retired. I spent my whole life fighting it, but we must
continue to fight it. We cannot give it up.

BATTISTA: Mike, at the same time, if we keep pouring money into Colombia,
how do we avoid -- I mean, if we give them money to use for their military
forces to fight this drug war, doesn't that pull the United States into
their longstanding political armed conflict down there? How do we avoid that?

GRAY: Absolutely, Bobbie. We're -- people have made the remark that
they're afraid we're going to get into another Vietnam down there. It's not
going to be another Vietnam. It's going to be another El Salvador. And
we've just seen evidence of that this past week. The fire fight broke out
and a bunch of U.S. citizens were shot down in a Huey helicopter. And a
gunship came in to rescue them, and all of the people involved were private
employees hired by the Dime Corp (ph) of Reston, Virginia.

In other words, we will not see the 82nd Airborne going into Colombia. We
will see former 82nd Airborne soldiers, former special forces, former CIA
agents, et cetera, as we did in Central America during the Reagan
administration. So, basically, as they admit, they are outsourcing this
war to private contractors, the reason being we can't afford to take
military casualties. We've already had American military personnel killed
in Colombia, and if the word gets out like in Vietnam that we're losing a
few people down there every week, that's not going to fly with the American
people. So that's why they use these contract employees. And when they
get killed, the only people who know about it are their families.

BATTISTA: You spent 10 days last year with General McCaffrey down in
Colombia, our former drug tsar. Is this what you saw going on there? What
were your observations?

GRAY: Well, I talked to a number of government officials down there and
they say this $1.3 billion that McCaffrey succeeded in sending to Colombia
was simply pouring gasoline on the fire. There's no question we could help
Colombia if we could something about the incredible poverty. But the
problem is three percent of the people in Colombia own 70 percent of the
useful land. And so the poverty down there is not something we're going to
cure. That's something that Colombians themselves have got to straighten
out. But we're not going to cure that problem by sending them gun ships.

BATTISTA: Nick, on the other -- you know, what is the incentive for the
folks in Colombia to stop producing what is clearly a high cash crop?
NOVARRO: There is no other incentive but the fact that they are making a
lot of money on it and that's all that (UNINTELLIGIBLE). My problem with
this situation is that, to be honest with you, the people are being killed
in Colombia, they don't bother me. If they are soldiers of fortune, let
them do whatever they have to do. And if they get hurt from it, OK.

My concern has always been all of the casualties that we're suffering in
this country. Americans are the ones who are really dying because of the
drug trade. And really, casualties in a war should be on both sides, but
the reality is that only Americans are the ones who are suffering
throughout this whole entire problem that we have been suffering for the
last so many years.

BATTISTA: So you're saying the problem is more demand oriented. We should
be spending more and doing more about the demand?

NOVARRO: There is a big gluttony for drugs in this country, not only for
cocaine and heroin and marijuana but also for other synthetic drugs. And
everything right now is conducive to really creating a bad environment for
this youth that is coming right now in this country. Look at this new drugs
that are coming into the market. They don't have anything to do with
Colombia or any other country. They are manufactured right here in our
land. They are distributed here and they once were benefit from the top to
the bottom of nothing but Americans. We are hurting ourselves. We are the
enemy. And all we have to do is look in the mirror and there we are.

BATTISTA: Well, let me ask you this about your personal experience since
you fought on the front lines of this thing as a former agent. Do you guys
look at every person that's involved in the drug war equally, I mean, from
the user to the dealer to the supplier?

NOVARRO: Not necessarily, no. We look at the user as a person who has been
the victim of the drug dealers. And that person needs assistance, needs
help. I believe in rehabilitation. Now most of those who are also engaged
in this type of war, the soldiers that are in the trenches realize that the
users, the addicts, they need to be rehabilitated. But what I have ever
heard all my life from parents coming to me is this: "Tell me how you are
going to prevent my child from becoming an addict. Don't tell me how you
are going to rehabilitate him. I don't want my child to become an addict,
first of all." And this is what this also all these folks were engaged in
the enforcement, the eradication and the interdiction are trying to do,
prevent the drugs from getting to those kids in our streets.

BATTISTA: Mike, how do you do that?

GRAY: Well, clearly, the present policies have not worked. As Nick just
said, this is an unwinnable war. He admits that. He came from the front
lines. He says we're probably not going to win this thing but we've got to
keep fighting it from now on. I say any time you're in a war that you
admit you're not winning, it's time to take a look at how you're fighting
it. We can fight this much more sensibly.

The RAND Corporation did a study and they showed that treatment and
education in this country is seven times more effective than interdiction
in Colombia. So every dollar you spend in this country is worth $7
overseas trying to stop the drugs at the source. These people down there
in Colombia are starving to death, and so it's not surprising that they
would go for coca. The government has forced them off of their land and
out in to the jungles. There's only one profitable crop you can grow
there. You can't grow mangoes because how are you going to get them to
market? Cocaine, on the other hand, is a bush that lasts for 40
years. You can harvest the crop three times a year. As a farmer-friendly
shrub, about the only thing that's going to beat coca plants is a money
tree. So we're not going to stop this in Colombia, but we can lose a lot
of lives and kill a lot of people. But as Nick says, we're not going to
win this war. We can this war here in the United States with treatment and
education.

BATTISTA: Let me get to a couple of comments from the audience here. Doug
in Florida e-mails us: "Sever relations with countries that send drugs to
the U.S. until they fight the drug lords that produce this stuff. When
they straighten out their own country, then let them back in."

Well, other than a lot of the implications and repercussions involved in
that theory, if you just shut it down in one country, isn't it likely that
it'll start being produced again in some other country?

GRAY: Absolutely. I mean, as Nick will tell you, when you succeed in
Colombia, you drive it over the border into Peru. The cocaine trade now
covers an area in northern South America the size of the continental United
States. Most of it is trackless jungles with rivers and streams that white
people have never even seen. And to imagine that we're going to go down
there in this trackless jungle with a bunch of helicopters and stop this is
crazy.

BATTISTA: I've got to take a quick break here. We'll continue with our
discussion when we come back. The question: Do you think the U.S. will
ever legalize drugs? Take the TALKBACK LIVE online viewer vote at
cnn.com/talkback. AOL keyword: CNN. We'll continue right after the break.

In 1986, Congress began requiring countries known for drug production or
trafficking to pass a drug certification each year showing they were making
adequate efforts to fight narcotics. Countries failing this certification
can face the loss of all economic assistance except for anti-drug efforts
and humanitarian aid.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BATTISTA: Help me get into the legalization question since we threw that to
the break and that's our poll question today. The legalization of drugs,
there seems to be a little bit of a momentum towards that idea, certainly
more than in the past.

Nick is that an option?

NOVARRO: Not in my estimation, Bobbie. I cannot agree with legalizing
drugs. This is something that to me doesn't make any sense. How would I
accept that all this substances and how are we going to determine which
substances can be legalized and which ones can be not? Are we going to
take the entire spectrum and make them all available to our kids in this
day and age when the gluttony for drugs is so immense in this
country? What we need to do is to continue to prevent those drugs from
falling in their hands. Regardless of how we do it, I don't care anymore if
it has to be through interdiction, if it has to be through education, it
has to be -- but I don't like to even get to the rehabilitation because we
have no addicts, we don't have to be rehabilitate anyone. But if we make
it available to all those children out there in the streets right now who
are looking for it and are trying to experiment with it, then we are going
to create a whole new society of zombies and drug users. And I don't agree
with that at all. What we need to do is to continue to fight.

BATTISTA: Mike, how -- practically speaking, how would you do that if drugs
were legalized?

GRAY: Well, Nick just laid out a very desirable goal and way to achieve it.
Unfortunately, we've been on that path now for 80 years and it hasn't
worked. Not only has it not worked, it has made everything worse. When we
began this experiment, drugs used to be legal. In other words, if you had
an addiction problem before 1914, you would go to your doctor, he would
write you a prescription. Then you'd go to the drugstore, you'd get the
drugs and then you would go to work. And most all drug users prior to 1914
were taxpaying, productive citizens with a medical problem. Suddenly we
pass this law and we turn them into criminals de facto. And now we've got
five times the number of addicts per thousand that we had when we began
this experiment. So it's time for us to take a look at this money
problem. Until we get the money out of this equation, we aren't going to
be able to address treatment or prevention or education or anything else
because we're going to be fighting these street battles, which are much
more glamorous but counterproductive.

BATTISTA: Let me go to the audience on this one, see how they feel about
it. Walter, what do you think?

WALTER: We have to take the profit margin out of the sale of drugs. So many
people getting rich even growing marijuana in their homes. And if we took
the profit margin away from them, they wouldn't be doing this. The kids
come up selling drugs. When they get 10 years old, they go out into the
streets selling drugs. And people wouldn't be bringing these boats from
these various countries trying to get into the United States because it
wouldn't be profitable for them to do that.

BATTISTA: Deandra, you disagree.

DEANDRA: Yes. I disagree strongly. I think drugs should not be legalized.
You have people who are part (UNINTELLIGIBLE) on marijuana that are
unproductive and do nothing. They go to work whenever they can, whenever
they want to, and they sit around all day long doing nothing. We shouldn't
legalize any drug. If we do, we may as well legalize auto theft or
shoplifting. I mean, we are encouraging people to do be unproductive in
society. BATTISTA: Are we making the assumption here, Mike, that if you
legalize drugs, more people are going to use them?

GRAY: Absolutely. That assumption is totally incorrect. It's not
supported by the facts. For example, the Swiss did an experiment just over
the last four years where they simply gave heroin to everybody that -- I
mean, to a cohort of a thousand addicts, and they located a thousand
addicts who were incorrigible, had been through treatment several times and
couldn't stop. They put them into a program where they simply gave them
the drugs that they wanted. And at the end of the first year, 60 percent
of these people -- the crime rate had dropped by 60 percent among this
cohort, half the unemployed had found jobs, a third of the people on
welfare had become self supporting. The general health of the whole group
improved dramatically. But the important thing is, Bobbie, that 83 of
these people quit all together in favor of abstinence. Now that's a better
cure rate than the force treatment programs we have here in the United States.

BATTISTA: Any idea why -- go ahead, Nick.

NOVARRO: I'm sorry to disagree with his statement, but in England, back in
the '70s I think it was, there was an experiment done, and they were
dispensing heroin to heroin addicts all over London. And what happened was
that they were saying that they had a habit that it was larger than what
they were really consuming, and they were passing the drug and selling it
to their friends and getting their friends addicted, also. So they would
come in and they'd get a larger dose than what they would be using and they
were becoming drug dealers themselves. So they had to stop that program in
a very quick fashion because they were creating more addicts than what they
had before. And it was done by this mentality of addicts that they can make
some money with it so they were doing it. So, you know, all those things
when you talk about legalization, I don't care what country has done any
experiments on it, it does not work. They had -- you remember the Chinese
and the opium (UNINTELLIGIBLE). They clean them out. They were not
enforcing anything at the time, but they had to go out and really get tough
on it and they cleaned them out because it was creating a society of
zombies. That's what it is.

BATTISTA: Jeffrey in the audience.

JEFFREY: In talking about legalizing drugs, there will still be users.
Obviously, some of the money won't be there to be made anymore, but money
will still be able to be made. So it's going to still cost money to make
- -- to buy drugs, so the money will still be there. Somebody will still be
interested in running the drug business.

BATTISTA: Jake in New York on the phone with us -- Jake.

CALLER: Yeah, I just wanted to know, if we're spending billions and
billions of dollars a year on fighting this war on drugs, if we legalized
it and put a tax on it, a hefty tax, what about the billions and billions
of dollars of revenue that would be generated for education programs or for
detox centers or for anything else that would work? And the issue about
getting drugs to kids if we legalized the drugs, with you know, every
single child on the street corner. That's the same issue with cigarettes
then, that if you want to try and make, you know, real laws to enforce it,
then no one under 18 or 21 can get it, then you have to try and do
that. You just can't assume that every child will be able to get their
hands on heroin if they want to. Thanks.

BATTISTA: All right, Jake, thanks.

Nick, you want to react to that or Mike?

NOVARRO: Yeah, we used to have...

GRAY: I would say this, Bobbie. About -- Nick is mistaken in his
assessment of the situation in England. They still have heroin maintenance
in England. I visited a heroin maintenance clinic in Liverpool. It was
enormously successful. And the interesting thing about that was while this
clinic was in operation, there were no street dealers because the serious
addicts, 450 of them, had been gathered into this program under medical
supervision, and they were being given their drugs under medical
supervision, and a lot of them were successful in kicking where they had
not been before.

But the interesting thing is that their kids in the neighborhood did not
have access to drugs because the dealers were off the street. There's no
market if you get the serious users out of the way.

BATTISTA: Nick?

NOVARRO: The dealers would always be there. The users are always going to
be there. And they do have a problem in England right now that it hasn't
stopped. Let me go back to the original argument. When I was treasury agent
before the Department of Drugs was transferred over to Justice, we had a
taxation on marijuana. Every time that we arrested someone, there was a
tax imposed on every ounce of marijuana that we were confiscating from this
individual. However, since we were putting them in jail and they had
already taken their profits and put in someplace where we couldn't find
them, it was an impossible ending for the IRS to enforce those laws. They
know how to hide the money. They've laundered the money. And you are not
going to be able to really get any revenues from taxing this illicit
drugs. It's impossible.

BATTISTA: Let me ask you a little bit more about the issue of education and
prevention. You both agree that that's clearly one of the better weapons
that we have in this war. But the problem there is: How do you win that
battle? Like the movie, "Traffic," for example, which is very realistic as
I understand. I've seen the movie. I think it's fabulous, but it is a
realistic portrayal about the futility of the drug war. You know, this is
reaching a lot of people. Parents are rushing home to talk to their kids
about drugs, conversations they probably should have had a long time
ago. But the point is: What works? You know what I mean? Is it the "Just
say no" slogans or is it movies like that? What works in the prevention?

GRAY: What works, Bobbie -- "Just say no" does not work, and we've proven
that conclusively. The Dutch don't do it this way. The Dutch give their
kids serious medical information. The last time we talked, it was right
after General McCaffrey had introduced his "Just say no" campaign, the new
ads with the skillet and the egg and all that sort of thing. And I said at
the time this is symbolism, it's not information. And kids laugh at that
stuff. Kids need serious information about what these drugs can do and
what they can't do. Scare tactics are even counterproductive because kids
love to take chances.

NOVARRO: You know, in my opinion, if I may, the problem that we have today
is more of a social problem, not just a problem that can be resolved
through programs. The problem is sometimes at home. Parents have to be
more careful and observe their children closer, not abandon the kids, not
just be involved in some other part of society and some other endeavors and
forget that those children need attention. We are a society today that is
really, to be honest, is neglecting these children. And we need to pay
more attention to our kids. That's the most precious gift that God has
given us, and we must pay attention to them.

BATTISTA: We'll be back in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANNOUNCER: In 1999, the U.S. spent nearly $2 billion for drug prevention
programs and about $8.5 billion in prosecuting and punishing drug offenders.

BATTISTA: Welcome back. Scott in California e-mails us: "Drugs destroy
lives. We need to fight harder to get rid of drugs including harsher
penalties for users and dealers." Gary in California answers that with, "If
we can't keep drugs out of our prisons, how can we expect to keep drugs out
of our country?"

Interestingly enough, we just got this story that broke off the wire since
we're talking about this subject today. Federal agents apparently have
discovered a tunnel near the Nogales, Arizona border with Mexico containing
millions of dollars worth of cocaine. The customs service says that this
500-foot-long tunnel had 198 bricks of cocaine with a street value of about
$6.5 million. This is the sixth time since 1995 that authorities have
discovered a tunnel used to smuggle drugs underneath this international border.

Mike and Nick, the bottom line is that when they made a bust like that, it
sounds good, but that's not really very much cocaine, is it?

NOVARRO: Not really.

GRAY: It's peanuts.

NOVARRO: It's almost nothing compared to what it comes in. To satisfy the
gluttony that exists in this country, when it comes to those substances,
what we are interdicting is only a very small percentage. And I don't
believe that we have ever been able to give you a true number of how much
we are interdicting. It's impossible. We don't know how much is coming in.
GRAY: That's very true. I talked to customs agents. They said that they
interdict five percent. And I said, "How do you know that?" And he said,
"We don't know that. That's just what we say."

BATTISTA: On the phone with us now is New Mexico's governor, Gary Johnson.

Governor, thank you for taking the time.

GOV. GARY JOHNSON (R), NEW MEXICO: Absolutely.

BATTISTA: You came under some criticism about a year ago when you first
talked about legalizing drugs or at least making some changes in the laws
in your state. And I know you've introduced a number of proposals to your
legislature aimed at decriminalizing small amounts of marijuana or cutting
the charges against first-time users and dealers. How is that going?

JOHNSON: Well, I think it's going -- I think it's going really well. I
think that awareness has gone way up. And if I may, fundamentally, if
you're smoking marijuana in the confines of your own home doing no harm to
anybody arguably other than yourself, fundamentally, do you belong in jail
for that? Is that a criminal offense? And in my opinion, no. If I could
draw an analogy to alcohol, you're having a drink in a bar. That's
acceptable behavior. But you leave the bar, you get in your car, you drive
your car, you have now passed over the line to actually criminal behavior.

Back to drinking. You drink, you're in the bar, you go out and you assault
somebody in a parking lot or you're involved in property crime because
you're drunk. That is criminal and should be prosecuted. I think that we
should draw those same lines of distinction when it comes to drugs. And
that is you do drugs and you do harm to somebody else, you get in a car,
you drive, that should be criminal, should always be criminal.

Kids doing drugs, that's never going to be legal or acceptable. Selling
drugs to kids, that's never going to be acceptable or legal. But what we're
doing right now basically is arresting an incarcerating this country over
behavior that is very similar to prohibition in the '30s. I mean, we've
gone through this before and it doesn't work. Eight million Americans have
done illegal drugs. Do we really believe that we're going to arrest and
incarcerate the entire country?

And Bobbie, one last thing and I'll stop. A question for you. You probably
know the answer. How many people in this country are arrested every year
on drug-related crime? I'm asking you a question. You're not going to fail
if you get the wrong answer, but what's your guess?

BATTISTA: Oh, boy, that is putting me on the spot. I really would have on
idea, but it's a lot.

JOHNSON: Make a stab at it. It is a lot but make a stab at it.

BATTISTA: Hundreds of thousands, definitely -- millions? JOHNSON: You know
what? I think hundreds of thousands is an intelligent guess. The answer is
1.6 million people a year. When you subtract adolescents or I should say
pre-adolescents out of that group, we're talking about one out of every 200
people in this country getting arrested every single year. This is insanity.

BATTISTA: Governor, can you stay with us a little longer?

JOHNSON: Yeah, yeah.

BATTISTA: OK, great, I've got to take a...

NOVARRO: May I say something to the governor.

BATTISTA: Nick, I want to come back and take your reaction but I've got to
go to a commercial. I'm pushing it here. We'll be back in just a second.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BATTISTA: Nick Novarro, you wanted to react to Governor Johnson.

NOVARRO: Yes, ma'am. What the governor was saying about consuming drug
altering minds, if any mind altering drugs are consumed at home, you don't
have to get in the car to go out and hurt somebody. Spouse abuse, children
abuse takes place at home, and sometimes it's derived from the abuse of
those substances, the legal and the illegal ones.

Alcohol is our legal drug that is one of the most devastating drugs that we
have in this country. And it has been said that during prohibition, it was
bad because we were prohibited from using it and there was a lot of abuse
to it. The abuse has continued. We have made it legal, we are taxing it,
but it has not created a better environment in this country. It has not
made us better people. At home, individuals abuse their spouse and their
children under the influence of those mind altering drugs.

BATTISTA: I'm sorry, I do have to interrupt here briefly, hopefully, but
White House press secretary Ari Fleischer is getting ready to talk to
reporters presumably about President Bush's address to Congress
tonight. So we'll listen in here.

(COVERAGE OF A LIVE EVENT)

BATTISTA: White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer fielding questions from
reporters today at his daily briefing about the president's upcoming
address tonight to a joint session of Congress that will begin at 7:30 p.m.
Eastern -- well, CNN's coverage, rather, will begin at 7:30 p.m. Eastern
time. And Mr. Bush's speech goes at 8:00, I think, isn't it? 8:00 Eastern
time.

Mike and Nick, I know you're still there. I thought it was interesting
that several questions came up during that briefing about the president's
meeting with the Colombian president today. I'm not saying this was the
case necessarily today, but it's always interesting to note how quickly
those questions are sort of blown off, if you will. This is not a subject,
this war on drugs, that politicians like to venture into, you know, at the
cost of appearing soft on drugs or whatever. Is it a no-win situation for
them or...

GRAY: That's where I think Governor Gary Johnson is heroic. Here is a
conservative Republican who's come out in favor of total reexamination of
our drug policies from top to bottom, which, of course, most governors are
terrified of getting involved in, but Governor Johnson will tell you in
private, as he has told me, that a number of governors agree with
him. It's just they're afraid to say so in public because they're afraid
of what we, the voters, will do to them. The voters have to communicate
that we are tired of this drug war and we're interested in having an
examination of the policies based on science and medicine and expert
witnesses. And that's what Governor Johnson has done. He called together
a blue-ribbon commission; they looked into this and they came up with a
bunch of recommendations which he is now trying to get enacted into law in
New Mexico. Among them, general decriminalization of marijuana as a first
step.

BATTISTA: Governor Johnson is back on the phone with us.

And governor, we were just talking about the reluctancy of politicians to
get involved in the war on drugs and to make public statements like you
have about their thoughts on it.

JOHNSON: Yeah, I notice that Nick, just before you had to leave to go to
the press conference, talked about domestic abuse, you know, and that drugs
oftentimes may cause this domestic abuse. I think it's important to point
out that that's always going to be criminal. That's what we ought to focus
on. But so much of the problem today has to do with prohibition. The fact
that marijuana today sells for more than gold -- these drugs, take heroin,
for example, an aspirin-sized dose of heroin today may make four heroin
addicts high tomorrow. Because there's a bust and there's a new source of
heroin, that same aspirin-sized dose of heroin today might kill four heroin
addicts tomorrow. So the point is that if we'll just look at the problem,
so much of the problem, a majority of the problem is the prohibition
against drugs, not the actual drugs themselves. And that is not for a
second to condone drug use.

I'm somebody who has not had a drink of alcohol for 13 years. And anybody
that's listening, I want to make a pledge here. Don't drink alcohol. It's
a handicap. It's an incredible handicap. And until you stop, do you
realize that? But not for a second do I believe that that should be
criminal activity, of course, unless you're harming somebody else. And yet
at one point in this country's history, alcohol was a crime.

BATTISTA: As we're -- go ahead, Nick. I just want to say that as we're
talking here, we're going to look at some pictures of that tunnel today
that was discovered by federal drug agents between Arizona and New Mexico,
this 500-foot-long tunnel where they found a fair amount of cocaine, shall
we say. But anyway, go ahead, I'm sorry.

NOVARRO: Yeah, this is the second tunnel we have found linking Mexico to
the United States for drug trafficking. However, what I was trying to say,
governor, is that really, prohibition on alcohol stopped 70 years ago. And
has things gotten any better by decriminalizing it and making it available
to everyone and taxing it? I don't think it has. We still have the problems
that we had and nothing has gotten any better. So by decriminalizing
drugs, are we going to create a better society? Are we going to be better
people because we have accessibility to drugs? I don't believe so. I
think that this is not going to help.

BATTISTA: We are completely out of time. Nick Novarro, Mike Gray, Governor
Gary Johnson, thank you all very much for joining us. Tomorrow, we'll talk
about a tax cut. Join us then.