TRUTH AND MARIJUANA

Vice President Al Gore has admitted using marijuana during his youth,
but a new book reportedly claims that Mr. Gore used drugs more
frequently, and for a longer period, than he has acknowledged.

According to DRCNet, an on-line news organization, Newsweek had planned to
publish excerpts of "Inventing Al Gore: A Biography" that detail the drug use
in this week's magazine, but delayed the piece. Newsweek is the magazine that
first learned of the Monica Lewinsky scandal two years ago, but famously
delayed that story as well, leaving Matt Drudge to break the bombshell on his
Drudge Report Web site.

The Gore book was written by Bill Turque of Newsweek's Washington
bureau. Although Mr. Gore has said he used marijuana only occasionally
and quit for good in 1972, the book quotes Gore friends saying that he
smoked marijuana quite regularly right up until the week that he
declared his candidacy for Congress in 1976.

Gore biographer Bob Zelnick made a similar assertion last year during an
interview on Fox News Channel, although his book, "Gore: A Political Life,"
does not dwell on the vice president's drug use.