I SMOKED POT AND INHALED, ALLIANCE HOPEFUL DAY SAYS

WOODSTOCK, Ont. - Canadian Alliance leadership hopeful Stockwell Day
admitted Monday that he smoked marijuana as a youth 30 years ago.

"Yes, I have done marijuana. And I did inhale," Mr. Day, 49, said
without hesitation. The answer followed a campaign stop in Woodstock,
a town whose American namesake symbolized the days of peace, love, and
protest.

Asked if young Canadians should experiment and break the law like he
did, he responded: "Oh, I think it's best left alone."

Day made the admission after a law-and-order pitch to 140 people at a
chamber of commerce lunch during which he pledged to restore public
confidence in the criminal justice system.

Day thought most people will forgive those long-ago sins committed
when he was in high school and university and smoking dope like most
of his peers. "I think they'll see it in that context."

The former Alberta treasurer joins other prominent Conservative Kim
Campbell, Ralph Klein and Jean Charest in admitting to having smoked
marijuana. "It was just part of growing up in that day and age,"
Charest said during the 1993 Tory leadership contest.

U.S. President Bill Clinton was evasive when asked about marijuana,
saying he smoked, but didn't inhale. Prime Minister Jean Chretien
claims not to have done so.

More upright now than when he wore long, blond hair in a pony tail,
Day expressed frustration that modern day criminals aren't treated
severely enough.

He advocated truth in sentencing practices so that if a felon is
sentenced to 10 years, the full term must be served in jail. He also
advocated automatic consecutive sentences to lengthen a criminal's
jail time, instead of the current system of concurrent sentences.

But he also indicated some of the spirit of the Woodstock generation
hadn't entirely left his heart since joining politics.

He recalled that as a youth counsellor, he and his wife Val would sit
up at night with heroin addicts as they went through the pain and
agony of withdrawal. "The federal government should be more concerned
about the life sentences imposed on those kids through that addiction
than the person who was responsible for getting them there."

Delegates attending last January's Alliance policy conference
considered a proposal to decriminalize marijuana, but decided against
it.The proposal was aimed at saving police money and time to
investigate and prosecute minor offences.

Day didn't say Monday how he had voted at the convention.