JOHNSON JOINS NADER IN DECRYING DRUG LAWS

The New Mexican Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader on Friday
joined Gov. Gary Johnson in criticizing the nation's war on drugs, calling
for the legalization of marijuana and reform of what Nader calls
"self-defeating and antiquated" drug laws.

"Addiction, no matter what kind of addiction, should not be criminalized,"
Nader said at a news conference with Johnson in Santa Fe. "It's got to be
subjected to health programs and caring programs, because they work."

Rehabilitating drug addicts gives a far better payoff than "criminalizing
and militarizing the situation," he said. "Study after study has shown
that, and yet somehow it doesn't get through to federal policy."

Johnson, a Republican who called Nader an "American hero" but stopped short
of endorsing his presidential bid, said he supports opening the
presidential debates to include such views as Nader's.

"We've all benefited from this man's work. We've learned a lot from this
individual," Johnson said of Nader, a leading consumer advocate and
corporate watchdog since the 1960s.

"I think there's a real opportunity here, and it's an opportunity that only
third parties have," said Johnson, whose drug views have been criticized by
fellow Republicans. "Third parties have the opportunity to talk about
subjects that oftentimes are taboo and need to be talked about."

Nader agreed.

"The presidential candidates from the Republican and Democratic parties do
not want to discuss the failed war on drugs. They do not want to discuss
it," Nader said. "Now, this is obviously a subject on the minds of millions
of Americans. It's a subject that people talk about all the time. It's a
subject that occupies huge amounts of law-enforcement personnel."

Yet all that Democrat Al Gore and Republican George W. Bush want to talk
about on the subject is more money and military aid to drug-producing
nations such as Colombia, Nader said.

Running a distant third in national polls, Nader appears likely to be
excluded from the presidential debates.

The commission overseeing debates has set a threshold for candidates'
inclusion at 15 percent support in five national polls. Recent polls show
Nader's support at 3 percent.

Nader this week wrote letters to the chairmen of all major television
networks asking that they sponsor their own debates, include major
third-party candidates and highlight issues being ignored by the major parties.

As examples of issues on which Nader disagrees with Bush and Gore, he
mentioned his opposition to the death penalty; his support of universal
health care and public financing of political campaigns; his fight against
"wasteful, unneeded increases in military spending"; and the drug war.

The letter cited a July poll by Fox News that found 64 percent of Americans
support inclusion of Nader and Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan in the
presidential debates and 73 percent think including the two would make
debates "more interesting."

"You can see a public interest duty to save the American people from
massive amounts of No-Doz as they try to deal with a series of soporific
debates between the drab and the dreary," Nader wrote to the network
executives.

He also suggested a "fiduciary duty to your shareholders" of including
third-party contenders because opening the debates would greatly increase
television audiences.

Johnson on Friday raised another reason for a broadened debate.

While commonly described as the only governor in the nation taking on
drug-policy failures, Johnson said he hears from other governors who
sympathize with his cause - but only in private.

"Behind closed doors, yes, there are a lot that agree," Johnson said.

"That's behind closed doors, and your talking about this issue as a
presidential candidate has all the opportunity to be able to make this a
safe topic for all politicians to talk about," he told Nader.

Nader, who noted "there aren't very many governors who stand at press
conferences with me," commented on the degree to which talk of reforming
drug laws has become politically off-limits.

"We live in a time in our history when common candor is called courage,"
Nader said. "If you just say what's on your mind and you have a
plain-spoken description of what everybody privately knows ... that the
drug war has failed, you are considered politically courageous."

He noted that anti-marijuana hysteria is such that farmers in the United
States remain forbidden from growing industrial hemp - a cousin of the
marijuana plant with only traces of the psychoactive chemical THC - while
the nation is now importing the multi-use weed.

Drug Czar Gen. Barry McCaffrey insists that "industrial hemp is a stalking
horse for marijuana," Nader said.

"I have an observation for Gen. McCaffrey," he said. "I don't think even
Gen. McCaffrey could get high on one-third of 1 percent THC. He might get a
stomachache."

Nader said the stifling of national political debate has contributed to
voter apathy.

"This is a national crisis when less than 50 percent of the people in the
land of the free, home of the brave, go out and vote for presidential
choices," he said.