GOVERNOR NOT INTERESTED IN LIBERTARIAN RUN

Gov. Gary Johnson stumped for drug legalization Tuesday on a visit to
Washington. Back home in New Mexico, a group launched an effort to keep him
there -- as the United States' first Libertarian president.

The Draft Gary Johnson for President Committee, a 25-member group of mostly
Libertarians, with some Democrats, Republicans and independents, wants
Johnson to seek the Libertarian Party nomination for president in 2000.
Committee members said Johnson's pro-legalization stance on drugs -- as
well as his support of smaller government, reduced taxes and school choice
- -- would connect with voters.

The group announced its intention to draft Johnson for president at a news
conference Tuesday in Downtown Albuquerque.

"We think Gov. Johnson would make a fine presidential candidate," said
Ashley Gauthier, an Albuquerque attorney and spokeswoman for the committee.
"He listens, and he pays attention to what voters want."

Johnson, who repeatedly has said he will not seek another elective office,
declined.

"I'm very flattered, but I'm a Republican governor, and I kind of dismiss
it," Johnson said of a presidential bid.

Johnson has said he wants to pursue business interests -- and even climb
Mount Everest -- after his term expires in 2002.

Gauthier, a former Republican who switched to the Libertarian Party
recently, said the committee will register this week with the Federal
Election Commission. She said the committee is not speaking on behalf of
the state Libertarian Party.

The group is unfazed by Johnson's recent refusals to run.

"We are hoping he will change his mind," Gauthier said.

Before the committee announced its effort to draft Johnson for president,
the governor gave the keynote address Tuesday at a drug policy conference
held by the Cato Institute, a libertarian-leaning think tank based in
Washington. The speech was broadcast live on the Internet.

Johnson also appeared on ABC's "Good Morning America."

During his Cato speech, Johnson conceded that legalizing drugs would create
a "whole new set of problems." But he said those problems would add up to
half the ones that exist now.

Johnson said drug demand will always exist, but legalizing drugs would
allow for control through regulation, taxation and better education. He has
repeatedly said drug use is a "bad choice" but that the choice should not
carry criminal sanctions.

"It's all about giving people freedom, and making them responsible for
their actions," he said.

Johnson said as he envisions legalization, drugs would remain illegal for
minors, and crimes committed under their influence would carry stiffer
penalties.

"I think that a legalization model is going to be a dynamic process," he
said. "We're going to make mistakes in legislation on how we legalize it.
We're going to fine-tune it as we go along."

The black-tar heroin overdoses that plague Rio Arriba County could be
avoided if heroin were legal, he said.

"Theoretically, you wouldn't have the overdoses anymore because they would
be legal, controlled, regulated substances that would be doled out,"
Johnson said.

"Again, I'm just posing this as a hypothetical -- that you'd have to go
into a hospital or to a clinic to receive a prescribed dose. And you would
receive a prescribed dose that wasn't going to kill you, and the needles
would be clean."

But Johnson said employers should retain the right to screen job applicants
and employees for drug use.

"In the end, it ends up being that person's choice: Do you want to be
employed, or do you want to do drugs?" Johnson said.

In September, Barry McCaffrey, a retired U.S. Army general who heads the
Office of National Drug Control Policy, asked Johnson to reconsider his views.

The notoriety the letter caused, Johnson said, helped pro-legalization
forces. McCaffrey will be in Albuquerque on Thursday to speak about
national drug policy.

"It just creates more attention to the issue. It just advances the issue,
which is wonderful," Johnson said.

Johnson also said he doubted the accuracy of polls McCaffrey has cited that
contend national drug use has dropped 50 percent since the late 1970s.

Johnson said illegal drug use was more socially acceptable in the late '70s
and that people today are more likely to lie to pollsters about illicit
drug use.

Johnson said in the late 1970s the country was spending about $1 billion on
the drug war and a few hundred thousand people were arrested on drug
charges. Today, the figure is about $19 billion and in 1997 1.6 million
people were arrested on drug charges, Johnson said.

"Does that mean," he said, "if drug use declines by half again, according
to McCaffrey, that we're going to be spending $36 billion federally and
that we're going to be locking up 3.2 million people?"

He said the nation must consider the costs.

"I mean, played out to its end scenario, when we're left with a few hundred
users nationwide, we're going to be spending the entire gross national
product on drug enforcement," Johnson said.

Johnson, who says he last used illegal drugs in his early 20s, said he
doesn't want to be regarded as "pro-drug." He said he has examined the
problem realistically and concluded the drug war is an "absolute failure."

Members of Delta 9, a pro-marijuana decriminalization group based in
Albuquerque, agreed. The group praised Johnson at an Albuquerque news
conference Thursday.

"We're becoming a land of shiny new prisons and crumbling schools, and it's
time it's stopped," said Ed McWilliams, the group's associate executive
director.