BUSH: NO DRUGS YEARS BEFORE FATHER IN WHITE HOUSE

ROANOKE, Va. (Reuters) - Texas Gov. George W. Bush, the front-running
candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, said Thursday he had
not used illegal drugs during a period that began years before his father
became president in January 1989.

Dogged on the campaign trail by rumors of past drug use, Bush told reporters
in Roanoke, Va., he could have passed the standard FBI background check,
which asks about drug use over the past seven years, when his father was in
the White House.

"Not only could I pass the background check of the standards applied, I
could have passed the standards applied on the most stringent case when my
dad was president, a 15-year period," he said.

Bush, 53, Wednesday refused to answer questions from reporters during
campaign stops in Austin, Texas, and New Orleans, where he angrily chastised
a reporter for raising the issue.

"I've told the people of this country that over two decades ago that I made
some mistakes, when I was younger. I've learned from those mistakes," he
said during the impromptu press conference Thursday.

The son of former U.S. president George Bush, he has blamed rival political
camps for planting the rumor of illegal drug use with the press. By his own
admission, Bush has acknowledged behaving "young and irresponsibly" as a
heavy-drinking bachelor in Houston and Midland, Texas.

In a presidential campaign season where personal responsibility has loomed
as a key issue, Bush pledged to uphold the "honor and dignity" of the White
House.

"Should I become the president, my pledge to the American people is that I
will uphold the honor and dignity of the office to which I have been
elected," he said.