BUSH ASKED TO PARDON DRUG CRIMES

Drug legalization advocates asked Gov. George W. Bush for pardons for
nonviolent drug offenders Monday night in a vigil around the
governor's mansion.

The demonstrators protested on behalf of offenders who were given life
prison sentences for possession, distribution or use of illegal drugs.

Bush, the leading candidate for the GOP nomination, is under fire for
his reluctance to disclose whether he has ever experimented with
illegal drugs.

Alan Robison, executive director of Drug Policy Forum of Texas, said
since polls indicate the public doesn't think Bush's alleged past drug
use affects his competence in office, it is unfair that many others
serve time in prison for similar behavior.

"If we lived in a rational society, with a rational drug policy, we
would agree that this is only Bush's business," he said. "But we don't
live in a rational society."

He said Bush's advocacy of the War on Drugs campaign presents a double
standard.

"Bush thinks if he did it, it should be regarded as youthful
indiscretion, whereas if we do it, we should be punished for it," he
said.

Robison added that many nonviolent drug offenders are being placed in
prison cells that should be used for more dangerous criminals.

Many of these prisoners were charged with conspiracy, a charge often
issued to offenders who collaborate to traffic drugs, Robison said,
adding the charge requires only hearsay testimony.

Linda Edwards, Bush's communications director, issued a release Monday
stating that offenders must first apply for a pardon, and each case
must be reviewed by the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles and
recommended to the governor.

"Governor Bush is reluctant to grant pardons because of his basic
belief that those who commit crimes should suffer the consequences of
those crimes," she said in the statement.

[Photo by Cedric Mingat Daily Texan Staff Rose Johnson attends a news
conference on the steps of the Capitol Monday with her 3-year-old
daughter Earnestine. Both asked for the release of Charles Garrett,
who has been in jail since 1970 for possession of 2.5 grams of heroin
and who is now a symbol and legend for the fight to decriminalize drug
use. Johnson came wearing buttons and holding signs.]

Kevin Zeese, president of Common Sense for Drug Policy, said the
current drug policy does not prevent increases in overdose deaths,
adolescent drug use, or the spread of AIDS.

He added that harsh drug laws can even be detrimental, relating a case
in which an adolescent overdosed while his friends, fearing
prosecution, watched him die because they were afraid to take him to
the hospital.

On the Capitol steps Monday, Virginia Traylor, a Dallas mother of
three children who were arrested for conspiracy in a cocaine sale,
read a letter she and four other mothers of convicted drug offenders
wrote to former first lady Barbara Bush earlier this month.

"Our boys also committed 'youthful indiscretions,'" she wrote. "But in
their cases, the prosecutors and courts called them felonies."

Rose Kelleher, a Maryland computer programmer, told the story of
Charles Garrett, a man who was given a life sentence for possession of
two ounces of heroin in 1970.

Kelleher said Garrett, free on bond, fled from his trial while the
jury was reaching a verdict. Garrett was found and sentenced three
decades later, though he had stopped using drugs, she said. Kelleher
later began an Internet campaign to petition against Garrett's sentence.