STRAIGHT DOPE

In Which Our Man In Washington Hears Blunt Talk On Taxes, Education, And
Drugs



Cabbed over to the Heritage Foundation today to catch a speech by New
Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson. Perhaps you've heard of him: He's the
confessed toker of dope and snorter of cocaine who has called for
legalization of drugs. Drugs and Heritage don't really mix, so not
surprisingly tie was speaking on school choice. (Cato and drugs do
mix, so Johnson is slated to key-note a conference there tomorrow.)

Johnson was treated to an enthusiastic introduction from Heritage's
Becky Norton Dunlop. As Johnson sat upright, his tie glimmering with
psychedelic overtones--a blend of purple and raspberry, with a flicker
of yellow--Dunlop listed the governor's accomplishments. He's cut
taxes, privatized prisons, reformed welfare, and handed pink slips to
bureaucrats. There was no mention of his recreational drug use,
although she didn't neglect recreation. Johnson has finished the Iron
Man Triathlon twice and was set to go a third round in three weeks.
After he leaves office in 2002, he plans to climb Mount Everest.

"No one ever asked me to run for office," said Johnson, whose chiseled
orange-tan face and triangular right ear make him resemble an anemic
jack-o-lantern. His philosophy on being governor: Get in, make a
contribution, and get out. His biggest fear: leaving office thinking
"could've, should've, would've." If he accomplishes three things he'll
have no regrets: implement a statewide system of universal school
vouchers; decrease the income tax; and rethink the war on drugs. It
might be time for libertarian pilgrimages to Santa Fe to worship the
Great Pumpkin.

I don't know what spurred his latest media push; perhaps it's Ventura
envy. I don't really care. This guy has a message that people need to
hear--and a delivery style that can hold their attention. He would
challenge himself with an assertion by someone trying to trip him up,
and then he'd address the challenge passionately.

"Governor," he started out, "vouchers will take money away from the
public schools." Not so, he responded. New Mexico currently spends
$5,500 per pupil. His voucher would give each child only $3,500.
Hardly a net, per-student loss to the government school system. He
would look at the audience, fix his glistening blue eyes on someone,
and let loose. "Whether a cardiothoracic surgeon or an intravenous
drug user," he declared at one point, "parents care about their kids."

As you can see, he also managed to blend his issues. During Q&A, a
reporter asked if he wasn't detracting from his education message by
developing a reputation as a radical who wants to legalize black tar
heroin. "I hope the reputation I'm getting is one for telling the
truth," he shot back to the hushed crowd.

The truth he thinks he's telling is that if drugs were legal, people
would use less of them. If I heard him correctly, I think he has it a
bit off. It's not that people would use fewer drugs--the cost of drugs
would decrease, so people would no doubt use more. It's that drugs
would be less destructive to individuals, since they wouldn't have to
lie, cheat, and steal to use them on a regular, if not recreational,
basis.

At any rate, he got back on track. "Everything I've done is a
cost-benefit analysis," he said. "All of the money we are spending on
drugs, we can do better." With that, someone in the Heritage crowd
released a hushed whistle, the kind that indicates you're in the
presence of someone who is really out there.

Just after noon, National Review's John Miller and I were sitting in
the Cato Institute's F.A. Hayek Auditorium killing time and discussing
drugs. I was studying the head of a fellow in front of me, whose thin
and wispy white hair recalled Timothy Leary, while the patch of hair
hanging onto his lower lip reminded me of the late Frank Zappa. Miller
was concentrating on a guy from High Times, who had aqua hair, black
nail polish, and more body piercings than I do. John noted that this
is the "closest thing to a freak show you get at Cato." That, of
course, was another way of saying this is about as close to a freak
show as you get in Washington think tanks.

The room filled up. Gov. Gary Johnson took the stage. Johnson's tie
was again brilliant, but yesterday's psychedelic purples had given way
to a bit tamer blend of blue. This was perhaps a safety precaution,
since flashbacks, while unheard of at Heritage, are well within the
realm of possibilities at a Cato drug conference.

Cato President Ed Crane called Johnson, for whom the governorship was
an entry-level political job, a "walking advertisement for citizen
politicians." Crane noted that Johnson has vetoed more than 500
laws--more than all previous New Mexico governors combined--and that
he's sent 1,300 New Mexico public employees packing.

That means he fired another 100 yesterday, noted Miller, who was also
at Heritage, where the number was a mere 1,200. Early in his speech,
Johnson said he would be competing in his third Iron Man in
two-and-a-half weeks. Yesterday, it was three weeks. Two possible
explanations for these discrepancies: 1) Things are always just a
little bit better at Cato, 2) the longer one stays in Washington, the
better one's story becomes.

As he did for education, the governor would ask himself a question and
come up with an answer. "What do you tell the kids?" he posed early
on. "Tell them the truth," he replied to himself unflinchingly. "If we
legalize drugs, we might be a healthier society."

He declared that legalization would be a dynamic process, and that it
would bring up new problems as well as solving old ones. There'd need
to be new regulation and new laws, establishing age restrictions and
such. But there will also be new opportunities. Police, for example,
could focus on other offenses, such as "litter, speeding, and burglary."

He humanized the issue: Seventy-five percent of drug users, he said,
are white people with jobs. That's a population to which I can
certainly relate. Some of my best friends are white guys with jobs. He
refused to demonize dealers. "A profile of a pusher," the governor
said, "is your friend who happens to sell enough marijuana to support
his habit." A good friend indeed.

As Crane sat looking up intently at the orange-faced governor, Johnson
ripped off some more crowd-pleasing riffs. Declared Johnson: "Let the
government manufacture [drugs], grow [drugs], and distribute [drugs]. If
that doesn't lead to decreased use, I don't know what will."

This faith in government incompetence appears to be the reason why
Johnson feels that drug use wouldn't go up if drugs were legalized and
regulated. I still have to doubt him here. The government has gone up
against the downward-sloping demand curve many times, and it's lost in
each instance. Still, why get hung up on particulars? We've got a
two-term governor ridiculing not only government, but its drug war as
well.

Johnson was playing for the home fans, having saved these folks the
expense of a pilgrimage to Santa Fe. He got a standing ovation upon
introduction, he was often interrupted by applause, and he finished to
an even more enthusiastic standing ovation.

He called drugs a "handicap" many times, and made it clear that he no
longer does them. "I don't do drugs. I don't do alcohol. I don't do
candy bars," said the athletic governor. Nevertheless, he was adamant
about the pleasure they once provided, One of the first things he told
reporters in his first gubernatorial race, he said, was that he had
smoked pot. They replied, "Oh, so you experimented." "No," he said.
"This is something I did--me and my buddies, we enjoyed what we were
doing."

He closed with a story to illustrate the issue's crossover appeal. Two
old ladies recently approached his table while he was eating in a New
Mexico restaurant. "We're teachers and we think that your voucher idea
sucks," Johnson quoted them as saying, hunching over slightly and
raising his voice in a creaking manner so as to simulate advanced age.
"But your idea on drugs is right on, right on." Oh yeah.