FRIENDS SAY GORE WAS 'KEEN DOPE SMOKER'

Al Gore was an enthusiastic "recreational" smoker of marijuana in the
1970s, according to three of his friends from that period (Ian Brodie writes).

The trio are quoted in an excerpt in Newsweek from a biography of Mr Gore
written by Bill Turque, a Washington correspondent for the magazine.

They said that Mr Gore, now the Vice-President, sometimes smoked marijuana
as often as three or four times a week. "We'd get stoned and talk about
what we'd do if we were president," John Warnecke, one of the three, said.

Mr Warnecke was a reporter for The Tennessean in Nashville, where Mr Gore
worked as a journalist after his term as an army private in Vietnam.

Mr Gore admitted as long ago as 1987 to "infrequent and rare" marijuana use
that ended in 1972. The issue surfaced again last month when Mr Warnecke
was quoted on a website devoted to drug law reform as saying that he and Mr
Gore smoked marijuana more than 200 times.

The Tennessean conducted an investigation among its journalists and
concluded that there was no evidence of rampant drug use by Mr Gore.