NYC MAYOR, IN AD CAMPAIGN, SAYS HE LIKED SMOKING POT

NEW YORK -- Mayor Michael Bloomberg stares out from
the full-page ad in The New York Times, a quote bubble emerging from his
mouth. The quote: "You bet I did. And I enjoyed it."

The question: whether he had ever smoked marijuana.

Bloomberg's remark, made to a New York magazine reporter last year before
he was elected mayor, has become the centerpiece of an advocacy group's
advertising campaign urging New York City to stop arresting and jailing
people for smoking marijuana.

The $500,000 campaign will feature bus shelter signs and telephone booth
posters carrying the quote, the Washington-based National Organization for
the Reform of Marijuana Laws said Monday. It also includes radio spots and
the Times ads, the first of which appeared in today's editions.

Bloomberg said Monday that the city would continue making such arrests, no
matter what he may have said in the past.

"I'm not thrilled they're using my name,'' he said. "I suppose there's
that First Amendment that gets in the way of me stopping it.''

The mayor didn't say when he smoked marijuana.