EX-DRUG USERS HAVE QUESTIONS FOR BUSH

Governor To Be Asked For Formal Pardons, Reviews Of Prison Cases

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.