PAGE SIX: GORE POT TALE GIVES MAG COLD FEET

Excerpts from an upcoming biography of Al Gore that accuse the presidential
hopeful of chronic pot-smoking right up until he first ran for Congress in
1976 are too hot for Newsweek to print -- even though the book was written
by one of the magazine's own reporters.

According to stopthedrugwar.org -- a non-profit web site dedicated to
"pointing out the hypocrisy of our drug policy" -- Newsweek was set to run
portions of "Inventing Al Gore" by its Washington reporter Bill Turque in
the Jan. 18 issue. The excerpt would have included retired journalist John
Warnecke saying he and Gore regularly smoked pot together when they were
reporters at the Nashville Tennessean.

Gore, of course, said during the 1988 Democratic presidential primaries that
he had only used pot "rarely," that he didn't like it, and that he hadn't
toked in 15 years.

Warnecke told stopthedrugwar.org, "Al Gore and I smoked regularly, as
buddies. Marijuana, hash. I was his regular supplier. I didn't deal dope,
just gave it to him."

How frequent were Warnecke's reefer sessions with the would-be veep? "We
smoked more than once," he claims, "more than a few times, we smoked a lot.
We smoked in his car, in his house, we smoked in his parents' house ... we
smoked on weekends. We smoked a lot."

Gore spokeswoman Laura Quinn tells PAGE SIX that the veep's statements in
1988 were true and that Warnecke himself backed Gore's story in the press at
the time. "The gentleman's recollection in 1988 was very different," says
Quinn.

As to Newsweek's apparently sudden decision not to run Turque's drug-related
material, a Newsweek spokesman said only, "We are working on an excerpt,"
while declining to discuss its content or when it might run.

But PAGE SIX has obtained galleys of the book in which material has been
blotted out with a note from publisher Houghton-Mifflin reading, "Material
to be used in Newsweek serial." An additional explanation on the front page
says that the missing paragraphs were "tentatively scheduled" for Newsweek's
use "in mid-January."

One of the sections of missing material tagged for Newsweek's use follows
the sentence, "With [Gary] Hart's departure [from the primaries], Gore knew
that if sex was on the table, then drugs weren't far behind."

Houghton-Mifflin spokesman Walter Vatter says he doesn't know if Newsweek
will run the material it agreed to use: "You'll have to ask them."