DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATES SAY THEY TRIED MARIJUANA; REPUBLICANS SAY NO

BOSTON - All five Democrats running for governor say they have smoked
marijuana, but Republican candidate Mitt Romney and GOP lieutenant governor
candidate James Rappaport say they have never done so.

The disclosures came days after New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg
became an involuntary spokesman for a marijuana advocacy group's
advertising campaign.

"Yes, Bob inhaled," said Dorie Clark, a spokeswoman for former U.S. Labor
Secretary Robert Reich, in a reference to Bill Clinton's now famous remark
during the 1992 presidential campaign that he tried marijuana during
college but did not inhale.

Former state Sen. Warren Tolman tried marijuana around the time he attended
Amherst College in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

"I don't think it's something to be embarrassed about," said Tolman
yesterday. "But obviously, it's not something I'm proud of."

Romney, a Mormon who doesn't smoke or drink alcohol, has never smoked
marijuana, campaign spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom said.

Neither has Rappaport, the GOP-endorsed candidate for lieutenant governor,
spokesman Mark DeCourcey said.

Steven Epstein, a spokesman for Massachusetts Cannabis Reform Coalition,
which wants to legalize marijuana, was not surprised that the Democratic
candidates had experimented with marijuana.

But he was surprised by Rappaport's denial.

"He did go to college, didn't he?" Epstein joked.

Rappaport earned a business degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1977.

Rappaport's opponent, Republican Kerry Murphy Healey, who is Romney's
running mate, smoked marijuana "once or twice" as a student at Harvard 20
years ago, Fehrnstrom said.

In New York this week, Bloomberg became the new face for an advertising
campaign by The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.

Bloomberg's picture was featured on bus shelter signs, telephone booths,
and in a full-page ad in The New York Times with a quote from the saying,
"You bet I did. And I enjoyed it."

The question: whether he had ever smoked marijuana.

The ad urges New York City to stop arresting and jailing people for smoking
marijuana.

The other Democrats - Senate President Thomas Birmingham, state Treasurer
Shannon O'Brien and former Democratic National Party Chairman Steve
Grossman - all said they smoked marijuana more than once during their
college years.

"At the time, I thought it was the thing to do," said Tolman, 42, who has
three children. "I hope that young kids like my own don't go down that path."