DA CHALLENGES GOV. ON DRUGS

Gov. Gary Johnson and Bernalillo County District Attorney Jeff Romero said
they want to reduce drug use, but they agreed on little else Tuesday during
a televised debate on drug legalization.

"If we legalize drugs, the number of addicts is going to go up. Crime is
going to go up, and we're going to be allocating more resources to law
enforcement," Romero, a Democrat, said during the one-hour debate on KRQE
Channel 13 in Albuquerque. Tuesday's forum was Johnson's first one-on-one
debate with a drug-legalization opponent since the governor first called
the war on drugs a failure last summer.

Johnson, a Republican, contends that legalizing drugs -- he has mentioned
specifics involving marijuana and heroin -- would reduce crime and drug use
because the substances could be strictly regulated, controlled and taxed.

"We have to realize most of these people are selling drugs to pay for their
own drug use," Johnson said. "Under legalization, you do away with the need
to do crime and prostitution to get money to pay for drugs."

Johnson said the United States spends $50 billion a year on the drug war.

"That's half the courts, half the law enforcement, half the jails," Johnson
said.

But Romero said the federal government spends $17.9 billion, less than 1
percent of the entire federal budget annually, in the drug fight.

"State and local governments spent $16 billion to $17 billion, which is 1.5
percent of state and local budgets," Romero said. "So I don't agree we're
spending half our resources on drug law enforcement."

Romero said the number of drug users has been reduced by 50 percent in the
past 20 years, contrary to Johnson's assertion that the war on drugs has
failed.

"In Albuquerque we've seen a reduction in drug-trafficking cases by about
25 percent," Romero said.

Romero also questioned Johnson's statement that 1.6 million Americans are
behind bars for using drugs, most of them on possession charges.

"Nothing could be further from the truth," Romero said. "Only 1.3 percent
of all prisoners, both federal and state, are doing time for mere
possession charges. In New Mexico, I'm not aware of anyone in jail for mere
possession."

Johnson said he does not believe people belong in jail for simply doing
drugs in the confines of their own homes.

"You're doing no harm to anyone but yourself," Johnson said. "The goal in
this country should be to reduce drug abuse, not to incarcerate the
citizens of this country."

Romero said he would oppose legalizing even just marijuana because it
impairs judgment and causes health problems.

"Marijuana is a known carcinogen," Romero said. "One marijuana cigarette
has 22 times the amount of tar as one cigarette of tobacco."

Romero said Johnson has become the "poster child of certain special
interest groups" that want to legalize drugs.

Johnson countered that he devotes about 5 percent of his time to the drug
issue, "but it's receiving 100 percent of the attention."