20/20'S STOSSEL SPEAKS AT PAGE

John Stossel doesn't like lawyers. Or the drug war. Or the Food and Drug
Administration. In fact, Stossel doesn't like government organizations at
all. The 20/20 anchor and author detailed the case against government
Wednesday night in Page Auditorium to an audience of just under 400.
Stossel suggested that government regulation of any kind--including
monitoring of business, advertising and even the prescription drug
industry--creates at least as many problems as it solves.

"When government protects us from bad things, they protect us from good
things too," he said. He argued that prescription drugs should not be
regulated and that the regulation process is so slow that it causes more
deaths than it prevents.

He also came out in favor of legalizing drugs that are currently illegal,
saying the government's regulation of drugs creates crime, corrupts law
enforcement officials, deters people from "honest work" and creates a class
of gangs "wealthy enough to buy nuclear weapons." "Nicotine is about as
addictive as cocaine, but no one's knocking over 7-11s to get Marlboros,"
he said.

The reporter who made his name over the past two decades reporting what he
himself calls "scare stories" also attacked the media for sensationalist
journalism that creates a culture of fear in the United States.

He also chastised the audience for playing into America's litigious
culture, explaining that lawyers have ruined safety labels by making them
too numerous. He added that they have also degraded society by hurting
hospitals, doctors and vaccine companies with lawsuits.

"You've got the brightest kids--even here at Duke--not going into science,
engineering, physics. They're going to law school," Stossel said. "That
doesn't make the country any richer!"

He also involved the audience, doing "ambush interviews" and showing off
his white sneakers as he asked students for products they thought were
dangerous. "When did we become such wimps in this free country?" he asked.

Stossel, a 19-time Emmy award winner, came to campus as the first of the
Major Speaker Series put on by the Duke University Union, which seeks to
bring a diverse group of speakers to campus.

"I knew about this organization that lists speakers and through them I
found out about John Stossel," sophomore John Korman, chair of the Major
Speakers committee, said. "I thought, yeah buddy, we're going for the
libertarian."

Students in attendance said they felt "cool" for seeing the television star
in person.

"I used to watch John Stossel on 20/20," said freshman Alexandria Lemus. "I
can't wait to meet him and get his autograph."

However, some students said Stossel's logic fell short. "A lot of what he
said involved specific cases and he left out a lot of counterarguments,"
sophomore Jason Shapiro said. "It was very one-sided but that one side was
good."