DOES PAST DRUG USE KILL POLITICAL HOPES?

As past drug use by politicians gains renewed news media interest,
Sen. Orrin Hatch, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said
there also have been candidates for high-level government positions
and federal judgeships who have been approved despite past drug use.

And though he has helped confirm many of them, Hatch told The Salt
Lake Tribune, the pattern has resulted in too many federal judges who
are too tolerant or "mushy" about drug use by younger people.

Hatch refused to say whether any of the judges' past use includes
cocaine. And he did not want to talk about how the standards for
evaluating judges may differ from those for politicians.

Texas Gov. George W. Bush's presidential campaign has been dogged by
questions about whether Bush used drugs in his younger years, though
no one has produced any evidence or made any credible allegations of
illegal drug use by him.

Hatch based his statement on information gathered from FBI files of
judicial candidates. He has access to the files as chairman of the
Judiciary Committee. "This is for very high administration officials,
including all federal judges. You'd be shocked by how many of them
have used drugs in their earlier lives," he said. "Now, if I thought
that was disqualifying, because somebody made a mistake earlier in
their lifetime, we wouldn't be putting through a lot of these judges."

Hatch said he evaluates them based on "what they are today, not what
they were" and what they have done with their lives. Nevertheless, he
worries that federal judges who have used drugs can become lenient
when deciding drug cases.

"I'll tell you one thing that's wrong," he said. "You get a bunch of
federal judges on the district court bench, the trial court bench or
even the circuit court bench, who have used drugs, and know that it's
wrong now, and have changed their lives. Many of them still are more
tolerant of the usage of drugs by younger people because they did.
It's just a mind-set there that makes it even more mushy."

Hatch, who also is a candidate for the GOP presidential nomination,
has urged Bush to get the question of illegal drug use behind him by
speaking candidly. "He should answer those questions," Hatch said. "He
ought to answer them, and if he did take cocaine, he ought to say what
it was and get it behind him and say how he overcame it and what he
did to get his life straight."

Bush acknowledged he once drank heavily and made youthful "mistakes."
Pressed for more answers, he finally said he had not used illegal
drugs in the past 25 years but did not elaborate. Except for Bush, all
of the GOP candidates have said they have never used illegal drugs.

The Democratic rivals for the presidential nomination, Vice President
Al Gore and former Sen. Bill Bradley, have admitted experimenting with
marijuana as youths. Fueled by speculation about Bush, the question
of politicians' drug use has been much in the news lately. The White
House said Tuesday that President Clinton never used cocaine. A Rhode
Island Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate admitted Sunday trying
cocaine while a college student in the early 1970s.