drcnet.org
"We smoked more than once, more than a few times, we smoked
a lot. We smoked in his car, in his house, we smoked in his
parents' house, in my house… we smoked on weekends. We
smoked a lot… [T]he perpetuation of… silence over time has
allowed us to go on jailing kids… who are much younger and less
equipped to deal with life than Al Gore was when we were using
drugs together."
--John C. Warnecke on his relationship with Al Gore and on U.S. drug policy
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January 20, 2000
A DRCNet Exclusive by Adam J. Smith
A DRCNet Exclusive
By Adam J. Smith
The Week Online with DRCNet (stopthedrugwar.org) has learned that
Newsweek Magazine decided late Friday to postpone publication of an
excerpt of a Gore biography featuring eyewitness accounts of Al
Gore's regular and continued drug use over a period of years. The
drug use covers a period of Gore's life from his days at Harvard up
until the very week he declared his candidacy for Congress in 1976,
sources told The Week Online. The book, by Bill Turque of Newsweek's
Washington bureau, quotes both named and unnamed sources,
including John Warnecke, son of John Carl Warnecke – architect of
the John F. Kennedy grave site, and a long-time friend of the Gores.
An exclusive interview with Mr. Warnecke follows this story.
The excerpt had been scheduled to run in Newsweek's January 18th
issue, just days before the start of the Democratic primaries. A
previous excerpt from the book appeared in the December 6 issue. In
that excerpt, which covered Gore's Vietnam experience, Tipper Gore
was said to have spent considerable time, distraught with worry for
her husband's safety, at Warnecke's house while Gore was overseas.
The Gore biography, to be published by Houghton-Mifflin, was itself
originally scheduled for a January release, but that too has been
delayed until March 23. A spokesman for Houghton-Mifflin told The
Week Online that the delay was "normal."
Al Gore has previously admitted using marijuana, but those admissions
fall well short of the type of regular, even chronic use described by
Warnecke. Warnecke also says that Gore used marijuana regularly for
at least four years after the Vice-President claims to have stopped.
On November 7, 1987, in the wake of Douglas H. Ginsburg's failed
Supreme Court nomination, Gore told the Bergen County Record that
he had smoked marijuana in college and in the army but had not used
it in the past fifteen years. The New York Times reported on
November 8, 1987:
Mr. Gore said he last used marijuana when he was 24. He said he first
tried the drug at the end of his junior year at Harvard and used it
again at the beginning of his senior year the next fall. He also said he
used the drug "once or twice" while off-duty in an Army tour at Bien
Hoa, Vietnam; on several occasions while he was in graduate school
at Vanderbilt University and when he was an employee of a Nashville
newspaper (The Nashville Tennessean). On November 11, 1987, Gore
was quoted in UPI, saying "We have to be honest and candid and
open in dealing with the (drug) problem."
Mr. Turque refused to comment to The Week Online. Roy Burnett, a
spokesman for Newsweek, acknowledged that the magazine was
preparing to run a new excerpt from the book "in the coming weeks."
Asked whether there in fact had been a delay, and if so, the reasons
behind it, Burnett would say only that it is Newsweek's policy not to
discuss its editorial practices.
Gore, as part of the Clinton Administration, has presided over a drug
war policy that has led to the arrest and incarceration of record
numbers of non-violent drug offenders. In 1998, according to the
Justice Department, there were 682,885 Americans arrested on
marijuana charges, 88% of whom were arrested for possession. A
recent study by the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice
(www.cjcj.org) reported that the incarcerated population of the U.S.
will reach two million on or around February 15, 2000. Of those, more
than half are non-violent offenders according to CJCJ.
On February 8, 1999, Vice President Gore personally presented the
administration's Drug Control Strategy at a Washington, DC press
conference. During his remarks, Gore spoke about the "spiritual
problem" of drug abuse and about the need for more positive
opportunities for young people. Despite this, however, the strategy
allocates approximately 2/3 of the federal drug budget on
enforcement, with less than one third to be spent on treatment and
education combined.
At that press conference, Gore, perhaps inadvertently, pointed out
the very problem inherent in a class of political leaders who prosecute
a failing drug war while hiding their own experiences with illicit drugs,
and the message that sends to young people.
"And if young people… feel there's phoniness and hypocrisy and
corruption and immorality," Gore said, "then they are much more
vulnerable to the drug dealers, to the peers who tempt them with
messages that are part of a larger entity of evil."
INTERVIEW with
John C. Warnecke
Exclusive to The Week Online
By Adam J. Smith
John C. Warnecke worked as a reporter for the Nashville
Tennessean and was a close personal friend of the Gores.
Warnecke is the son of John Carl Warnecke, architect for the
John F. Kennedy gravesite. The Week Online spoke with Mr.
Warnecke by phone this week.
The Week Online: Mr. Warnecke, Vice President Gore has said
that he used marijuana 'on several occasions' and 'not since he
was twenty-four.' But you say that you have first-hand
knowledge that his use was more extensive than he has
previously admitted?
John C. Warnecke: Yes, I do. I have first hand knowledge that he has
not told the truth about his drug use. Al Gore and I smoked regularly,
as buddies. Marijuana, hash. I was his regular supplier. I didn't deal
dope, I just gave it to him. We smoked more than once, more than a
few times, we smoked a lot. We smoked in his car, in his house, we
smoked in his parents' house, in my house… we smoked on weekends.
We smoked a lot.
Al Gore and I were smoking marijuana together right up to the time
that he ran for Congress in 1976. Right up through the week he
declared for that race, in fact.
WOL: And after that?
JCW: After that he began to distance himself from me. I was bad for
his political career.
WOL: During the course of the 1988 campaign, you told the New
York Times and the Nashville Tennessean that you had smoked
marijuana with Al Gore…
JCW: A few times. And I told them that he didn't like it.
WOL: Why didn't you tell the truth at that time?
JCW: I was put under a lot of pressure to lie.
WOL: Who was pressuring you?
JCW: The answer to that question is in the excerpt that Newsweek
decided not to run. It's in the Turque book. Right now, I'm going to
leave it at that.
WOL: So what made you decide to come forward now?
JCW: It's because I've been under a lot of stress. My conscience has
been killing me ever since then. I actually came forward months ago
when Bill (Turque) interviewed me for the book. I had been told that
this story would come out, that the public would know this by now.
But then the book date was pushed back, and Newsweek pulled the
story. The only thing that I can assume is that Newsweek is covering
this up, protecting the Gore campaign by refusing to run this before
the primaries. I decided that I had to go ahead and tell it. I really feel
that the public has a right to know this at this time, and I was having
trouble living with myself being part of the hypocrisy and the lies.
WOL: Hypocrisy?
JCW: Yes. The drug laws in this country are ruining the lives of
hundreds of thousands of young people, mostly poor young people,
people who don't come from privileged backgrounds and wealthy
families. It just doesn't make sense that we have a war on drugs. It
doesn't work, and the politicians refuse to talk about it. That suffering
and that hypocrisy has weighed very heavily on my conscience. I
have a saying that I use, and that is: "who raised you?" In other
words, were you raised with a conscience? Mine has made my life
very difficult ever since I became part of the hypocrisy. I couldn't live
with the lie anymore. Not and stay sober.
WOL: How long have you been sober?
JCW: Twenty-one years.
WOL: Congratulations. So, after twenty-one years of sobriety,
do you consider Al Gore a criminal for his drug use?
JCW: I don't consider drug use a criminal act. Is drug use a poor
choice? Yes. Is it risky behavior? Yes. Does it make any sense -- has
it gotten us anywhere as a society to criminalize it? Absolutely not.
Unless you consider it progress that we're spending more on prisons
than on higher education, and still the drugs are everywhere. But
politicians refuse to talk about this issue honestly.
WOL: And what would you have Al Gore say about it?
JCW: I wish Al would come clean. I wish that all politicians would
come clean and deal with this in a rational manner. Look at all the
damage the silence is causing.
WOL: And Newsweek?
JCW: Newsweek cut off information that the American people should
have had in order to make an informed decision. Knowing that Al Gore
used drugs considerably more than he has admitted is important. Let
the American people draw their own conclusions about it, let them
decide how important it is.
We need to quit lying about it. Quit hiding it. To my mind, Newsweek
censored this, they covered it up. And I think that the perpetuation
of that silence over time has allowed us to go on jailing kids. Kids who
are much younger and less equipped to deal with life than Al Gore was
when we were using drugs together.
I want any candidate that is running for president to be honest about
their drug use. And then we can start being honest with ourselves
about how best to deal with society's drug problem.
WOL: So you don't think that his past drug use, even his
extensive drug use, should disqualify Al Gore from the
nomination?
JCW: I'm going to vote for Al Gore. |
