DEEMS PUFFED POT; ROMNEY, RAPPAPORT DID NOT

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 B. 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 E. 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.