GARY REACHES PINNACLE; DRUG STATESMANSHIP NEXT?

He did it: To the surprise of few New Mexicans who have followed the
adventures of Gary Johnson, our two-term governor, no sooner out of office
than on the trail, just reached the top of the highest mountain in the world.

Guided by expedition leader Dave Hahn of Taos, Johnson got to the
29,035-foot summit of Mount Everest after a few days of waiting out a storm
at a 26,000-foot base camp. On Thursday evening, New Mexico time, the group
made its successful climb up the wind-blasted final stretch, where scarce
oxygen becomes even scarcer and every step is a struggle.

It was 50 years ago, almost to the day, that Edmund Hillary and Tenzing
Norgay made the first known "summiting' of the great peak. A couple of
thousand would follow - even though one out of 10 would die - in the
decades to come.

So despite the numbers of folks adventurous and wealthy enough to achieve
the arduous ascent and equally tortuous descent, and despite the
83-year-old Sir Edmund's lament that climbing Everest isn't what it was,
this isn't your afternoon trek up Atalaya Peak; Johnson has met and
overcome a greater physical and mental challenge than anything he's seen to
date.

Johnson turned 50 on New Year's Day, the day he handed our state's
governorship to Bill Richardson -; pretty young for someone who's just
served eight years at the pinnacle of New Mexico politics. He still has
plenty of stamina - some of which, we can't help hoping, will be put in the
service of our state.

Doing what? How 'bout a fresh effort toward sensible drug policy?

In 1999, safely re-elected to a second term and prohibited by our state
constitution from seeking a third, Johnson used his bully pulpit to say
what few politicians dared: Our nation's war on drugs has been a "miserable
failure.' He began actively - his critics would say obsessively -
advocating legalization, beginning with marijuana.

That was shocking enough to most of his fellow Republicans, and Johnson
didn't do much to advance his cause among his party's establishment by
reminiscing over his doper days.

But what he said was right: Smoking marijuana shouldn't get a person thrown
in jail. As for "hard drugs,' keeping them criminalized keeps them
expensive; high mark-up items with high profits for organized crime - and
high risks that decent folks will be mugged or burglarized to support the
cocaine and heroin habits of lowlifes who can't seem to do without the stuff.

Johnson said he has "a fundamental problem with putting people in jail for
drug use.' Trouble is, much of society has a hard time distinguishing
between that use and the crimes supporting it. Treatment, however, makes
more sense than trotting druggies in and out of prison. And effective
education is a better deterrent than the threat of dawn raids by drug squads.

Where Johnson should begin is where he was most persuasive: at the
cost-benefit level. He claimed to have done a fiscal analysis of everything
coming across the gubernatorial desk, finding that an item of "incredible
cost and no benefit is our war on drugs.'

An ideal partner in a rational call for drug-policy dialogue would be John
Dendahl. The former Olympic athlete has just become the former chairman of
our state's GOP - owing in great part to his independently arrived-at
conclusion that the dope wars are a waste.

Most mainstream politicians, especially beleaguered liberals, are afraid to
climb this cliff. But Gary Johnson knows no fear - and maybe he learned
from his test of patience at base camp that timing and approach can be
crucial to success.

We congratulate him on reaching his lofty goal - and wish him many years as
a young and energetic elder statesman.