General Consternation.

• Author: Sullum, Jacob
• Position: New Mexico governor criticizes drug laws

New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson's "astonishing" position on drugs is upsetting all the right people.

During an October speech in Washington, New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson sounded a bit like the guidance counselor on South Park. "Drugs are bad," he told his audience at the Cato Institute. "Don't do drugs."

A 46-year-old triathlete who abstains from alcohol, tobacco, Coca-Cola, and candy bars as well as illegal intoxicants, Johnson declared drugs "a handicap" so many times that I lost count. Yet the conservative Republican insisted on posing a question that few politicians are brave enough to ask: Are drugs so bad that people who possess them should be arrested and locked up? Johnson's answer, as heartfelt as any prohibitionist's determination to achieve a "drug-free America," is an unequivocal no.

A few weeks before the Cato speech, that stand prompted a scolding letter from federal drug czar Barry McCaffrey, who informed Johnson that "your publicly stated positions are inconsistent with my national drug control policy." When Johnson failed to fall in line, the frustrated former general let loose a barrage of invective, calling the governor's views "preposterous," "astonishing," "embarrassing," and "pro-drug." He said Johnson is "a terrible model" sending "a terrible message." In short, "he should be ashamed."

McCaffrey's over-the-top reaction - which included a trip to Albuquerque arranged especially so he could castigate Johnson on his home turf - suggests how desperate drug warriors are to maintain the illusion of monolithic support for their never-ending crusade. They cannot tolerate even a peep of dissent from someone in a position of authority. But neither McCaffrey's vituperation nor the anger of Johnson's fellow Republicans in New Mexico (who reportedly have screamed and cursed at him in private) has stopped the governor from speaking out against an injustice that seems to have troubled him for a long time.

When he first ran for governor in 1994, Johnson readily admitted that he had smoked marijuana and snorted cocaine as a college student. In his Cato speech, he recalled correcting reporters who described this as "experimenting with drugs." He and his friends were not experimenting, he said. They were having fun.

Johnson wants to make it clear that his experience with drugs did not involve test tubes and Bunsen burners. Nevertheless, he says, such "experimentation" does refute certain hypotheses about the consequences of drug use...