ADS QUOTE A MAYOR WHO INHALED AND LIKED IT

The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws Foundation
said yesterday that it was beginning a $500,000 advertising campaign
featuring Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg paired with a remark he made
praising marijuana to a magazine reporter last year before he
announced he was running for mayor.

The group, which is based in Washington, put out a news release
saying that its campaign, which would include bus shelter signs,
transit signs and radio advertisements, would be aimed at the city
government, which it would like to stop arresting and jailing people
for smoking marijuana. The group also placed a full-page
advertisement today in The New York Times.

The ads will feature the mayor responding to the question of whether
he had ever tried marijuana by saying: "You bet I did. And I enjoyed
it." The quotation comes from an interview the mayor gave to New York
magazine last year.

Mr. Bloomberg, who learned of the planned advertisement when
reporters told him about it at his daily news conference yesterday at
City Hall, grinned and said, "Oh great, I'm thrilled." He added: "I'm
not thrilled they're using my name. I suppose that the First
Amendment gets in the way of me stopping it. I think we should
enforce the laws as they are, and the Police Department will do so
vigorously."

Former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani had a less gentle approach to those
advertisers who used his name in what he considered to be an
unflattering manner. In 1997, New York magazine ran bus ads that
referred to itself as "possibly the only good thing in New York Rudy
hasn't taken credit for."

Through the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Mr. Giuliani
fought to remove the advertisements through the courts and lost. The
United States Supreme Court refused to hear the agency's final
appeal, letting stand a federal appellate court decision that the
authority violated New York magazine's free-speech rights last year
by forcing the magazine to kill the ads.