EX-DRUG OFFENDERS TO ASK BUSH FOR PARDONS

AUSTIN -- Roseanna Ruiz, a former drug offender who now counsels
prison inmates with drug problems, doesn't know if presidential
candidate George W. Bush ever used illegal drugs as a young man. But
she is convinced of two other things.

Even if he did, Ruiz says, it obviously didn't keep the Texas governor
from leading a hugely successful life now. And she says, his
hard-line, lock-'em-up approach against drug offenders is an
ineffective way to turn abusers into productive citizens.

"People can change," she said.

A twice-convicted drug felon who is now an honor student at the
University of Houston-Downtown and a part-time drug counselor at two
Houston-area prisons, Ruiz believes she is living proof that people --
with the right help -- can turn their lives around.

In refusing to answer questions about whether he used illegal drugs as
a young man, Bush has asked voters to forgive unspecified "mistakes"
he made and elect him president. Ruiz and other ex-drug offenders like
her -- who have served time in prison for their mistakes, kicked their
drug habits and now live productive, taxpaying lives -- will ask Bush
on Monday for formal pardons and ask the governor to review the
current cases of some nonviolent offenders.

Their list will include Charles Edward Garrett, a black man sentenced
to life in prison by an all-white Dallas jury in 1968 for possession
of 2 grams of heroin.

Garrett jumped bail while jurors were deliberating his punishment,
changed his name, kicked his heroin addiction and became a
law-abiding, taxpaying citizen. But he eventually returned to Dallas,
where he was discovered last year, arrested and sent off to prison at
age 56 to begin serving his life sentence for an offense that would
probably get probation or a short jail sentence now.

Advocates of drug law changes also will hold a vigil outside the
Governor's Mansion "to raise awareness that our `prison-first'
solution to drug use in Texas has gone awry," said Houston
pharmacologist G. Alan Robison.

Robison, professor of pharmacology at the University of Texas Medical
School in Houston and the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, is executive
director of the Drug Policy Forum of Texas, one group involved in the
reform effort.

"We must find another way to deal with drug use so that we do not
permanently damage the future of our young people, just because of
youthful experimentation," Robison said.

"We are calling on the governor to take the moral high ground here --
to review the cases of nonviolent drug offenders currently held in
Texas, and to grant pardons to all those who are simply guilty of the
same behavior he may have once engaged in."

For Bush to do anything less, Robison said, would show that "the
governor believes in a two-tier system of justice -- one for people
like him, and another for the rest of us."

Pressed by reporters last month, Bush, the front-runner for the
Republican presidential nomination, said he has not used illegal drugs
since 1974, the year he turned 28.

But he immediately added: "I have told the people of this country that
over two decades ago, I made some mistakes, when I was younger. I have
learned from those mistakes."

But regardless of what he may or may not have done during his younger
years, Bush has taken a tough stance against drug offenses as governor.

"Governor Bush believes there must be consequences for breaking the
law," spokesman Scott McClellan said.

McClellan said the governor would not comment on potential pardon
requests until cases were formally presented to him.

Long gone are the days when Texas courts sentenced defendants, even
first-time offenders, to life imprisonment for the possession of small
amounts of illegal drugs, but Texas prisons and state-run jails still
house thousands of drug offenders.

In 1993, when Democrat Ann Richards was governor, the Legislature
toughened sentences for violent offenders. In the process, penalties
for many drug offenses were reduced to probation or short jail time to
make more prison room for murderers, rapists and robbers.

Under Richards, lawmakers also set 14,000 beds as a goal for drug
treatment programs for prison inmates with an eye toward tackling the
alcohol and drug abuse that is a major cause of repeat criminal behavior.

During his 1994 campaign, Bush criticized some of the drug policies
under Richards.

In particular, Bush campaigned against a 1993 law that provided
automatic probation for first-time offenders convicted of selling or
possessing less than a gram of cocaine. The Legislature in 1995, his
first year in office, repealed the automatic probation feature and
allowed judges to sentence those first-time offenders to as long as
two years in a state jail.

And since Bush has been governor, the prison drug treatment program
envisioned by Richards has been reduced by more than half -- to 5,300
beds.

The number of inmates in state prisons for drug offenses, meanwhile,
has increased from about 17,000 to more than 28,000 while Bush has
been governor, although part of that increase may be attributable to
an increase in prison capacity during the same period.

Glen Castlebury, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Criminal
Justice, said a breakdown between how many drug offenders were serving
time for possession or for the more serious offense of drug
trafficking wasn't readily available.

But Castlebury said it was unfair to blame Bush for cutting back on
the prisons' drug treatment program. Castlebury said the Legislature
never funded 14,000 drug-treatment beds for the state prisons when
Richards was governor. He said no one in state government knew how
many beds were needed and that the original 14,000 goal was only a
guess.

Castlebury said the decision to fund only 5,300 drug beds in the
prisons in 1995 was the Legislature's, not Bush's, and was based on
expert advice on how many inmates could be effectively treated and how
many professional counselors were available.

He said that capacity does not include additional drug treatment
programs in state jails, where many minor drug offenders serve their
sentences.

Tom Krampitz, executive director of the Texas District and County
Attorneys Association, said Texas' drug laws are "about as tough as
you can get" for major drug dealers and other aggravated drug offenses.

But, he added, the laws also provide adequate second chances for
offenders who are "reasonable candidates for rehabilitation."

Ruiz, the offender-turned-counselor, served more than four years in
prison during the early 1990s because of her drug addiction. She was
convicted once in Houston for possession of dilaudid, a prescription
painkiller, and a second time for possession of narcotics
paraphernalia.

But she never got any treatment until the judge who presided over her
second case ordered that she serve part of her second prison sentence
in a drug treatment program, the kind of program that has been cut
back since Bush took office.

"That program saved my life," Ruiz said. "There needs to be more of
them."

Now 43, Ruiz said she is a member of two collegiate honor societies,
including Phi Beta Kappa, and expects to receive an undergraduate
degree with an emphasis on criminal justice and psychology next spring.

She also does volunteer counseling at the prison system's Jester I
Unit at Richmond and does similar work as an intern at the nearby
Carol S. Vance Unit.

Her internship at the Vance prison is part of the Inner Change Freedom
Initiative Program, the type of faith-based effort that Bush is
actively promoting as part of his "compassionate conservative" agenda.

Ruiz said she has completed her parole, has been drug-free for five
years and plans to ask Bush for a pardon.

"I feel like I've earned it," she said.

"I've worked real hard to turn my life around. And I've tried to give
those (prison) inmates a message of hope."

Garrett, the former Dallas fugitive serving a life sentence for heroin
possession, was arrested at his workplace, a Dallas medical school,
where he had a $33,000-a-year job as a mechanic.

If his pending appeal is unsuccessful, his lawyers estimate he will
have to serve seven years behind bars before being eligible for parole.

Rose Johnson, Garrett's girlfriend and the mother of his 3- year-old
daughter, may have been the most surprised person on earth when he was
arrested.

She knew nothing about his 30-year-old conviction, until he didn't
show up for dinner the night law enforcement officers caught up with
him.

She knew him as Kowl Williams, the alias he adopted while on the
run.

But Johnson, who was only 4 years old when Garrett was convicted, is
convinced that he deserves a second chance and is petitioning the
governor for a pardon.

"He's a great father and companion and has been rehabilitated," she
said.