COCAINE SEES SHIFT IN PUBLIC TOLERANCE

It was not just the polyester clothes, effusive hairstyles and disco music
that created a vast cultural distance between the 1970s and the late 1990s.
It also was public attitudes about drugs.

As Texas Gov. George W. Bush, the front-runner for the Republican
presidential nomination, scrambles to answer questions about whether he
used cocaine, he has become the latest politician to stumble into the
minefield created by the dramatic public shift since the 1970s in how
casual drug use was perceived.

There was a time in America, in the 1970s, when it appeared even official
Washington teetered on the brink of declaring cocaine harmless. In 1977,
Dr. Peter Bourne, who was President Carter's top anti-drug official, said,
``Cocaine is probably the most benign of illicit drugs. At least as strong
a case could be made for legalizing it as for legalizing marijuana."

`Safer than liquor'

It was a time when Newsweek could publish a story, as it did in 1977, that
said, "Cocaine probably causes no significant mental or physical damage,
and a number of researchers have concluded that it can be safer than liquor
and cigarettes when used discriminately."

Keith Stroup, executive director of the National Organization for the
Reform of Marijuana Laws, who has been involved in the group's efforts to
decriminalize drugs since the 1970s, said, "The things Peter Bourne was
saying about cocaine represented the thinking of a lot of progressive drug
officials then."

A national survey of 18- to 25-year-olds taken in 1979 showed that 70
percent had taken illegal drugs and half were regular drug users. At least
20 percent admitted cocaine use.

Peter Bensinger, who was the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration
during the Ford and Carter administrations, said, "There was an
identification of cocaine as a jet-set drug, there was an element of
society and even of government that was somewhat tolerant of the drug."
Jill Jonnes, who wrote on America's drug history in the book "Hep-Cats,
Narcs and Pipe Dreams," noted that in 1975, the Ford administration issued
a "white paper" on drugs that said, "Cocaine, as currently used, usually
does not result in serious social consequences such as crime, hospital
emergency room admissions, or death."

Bush's most recent statement indicated that he had not used any illegal
substance since at least 1974, a year in which Bush would have turned 28.
He has declined comment about his earlier days.

Some other presidential candidates who were young adults in the late 1960s
and early 1970s have admitted some illegal drug use -- Vice President Al
Gore said in 1987 that he smoked marijuana "a few times" in the late 1960s
and early 1970s. Gore likened the use to drinking "moonshine in Prohibition."

But cocaine is seen as a different matter.

Few politicians have come forward and admitted to cocaine use.

Admitting use

A couple of exceptions have been Gov. Gary Johnson of New Mexico and
Lincoln Chafee, a U.S. Senate candidate in Rhode Island.

In the mid-1990s, Johnson, a Republican, admitted using cocaine and smoking
marijuana in the 1970s. The admission didn't cause much of a stir during
his run for office, according to press accounts.

Chafee, the mayor of Warwick, is the only Republican running for the seat
being vacated by his father, John Chafee, who is retiring from the Senate.
Lincoln Chafee, 46, admitted Sunday that he used cocaine "several times"
during his college years.

The problem for politicians who may have used cocaine in the 1970s is the
dramatic shift in public attitudes, experts said.

By the mid-1980s, it had become clear that cocaine was highly addictive for
some people. Several high-profile entertainers and athletes either died of
cocaine overdoses or admitted it had wrecked their careers.

Then, an epidemic of crack cocaine rocked American urban centers, fueling
crime and murder rates.

By the time George Bush became president in 1988, a strong anti-drug stand
was as critical to politicians as being for mom and apple pie.

Bensinger, who is now the co-director of Bensinger-DuPont and Associates,
an organization involved in drug treatment initiatives, said that if Bush
had used cocaine, he should admit it and try to turn it into a lesson for
others.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.