Friedman urges pot be decriminalized Candidate says more room in prison is needed for 'the pedophiles and the politicians'

AUSTIN - Independent gubernatorial candidate Kinky Friedman called Wednesday for the decriminalization of marijuana to avoid further clogging state prisons with nonviolent offenders.

He also said he would favor a review of people already imprisoned on marijuana charges to "rehab them, try to get them back into society."

"We've got to clear some of the room out of the prisons so we can put the bad guys in there, like the pedophiles and the politicians," said Friedman, a humorist and author.

Friedman said he doesn't yet have specifics on how decriminalization would work, including what amount of marijuana a person could possess without being charged. He did say that he doesn't favor making marijuana legally available for purchase.

"I'm not talking about like Amsterdam," he said.

"I agree with (U.S. Sen.) John McCain that we've lost the drug war," Friedman said. "Drugs are more available, they're cheaper.

"It's clear to me, if you've lost the war on drugs then you've got to go some other direction. You can't keep banging your head against the wall."

Crack 'a different deal'

Friedman's comments on marijuana came one week after he created a controversy in Houston when he said the musicians and artists who fled Hurricane Katrina had returned to New Orleans, but the "crackheads and thugs" remained. He later added that many evacuees who remain in Houston are good citizens.

The candidate said Wednesday that crack "is a different deal" from marijuana.

"Marijuana is a very different situation. It's not like crack and (other) drugs that create violence," he said.

Friedman discussed his prior cocaine use last week in an interview with the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News. He also has written extensively and talked freely about his cocaine use when he was a satirical musician during the 1970s and early 1980s.

He said the deaths of two close friends spurred him to change his lifestyle, and he has not used illegal drugs since 1985, when he left New York to return to Texas and began writing detective novels.

Calls himself a 'realist'

Friedman added that though he knows most of the New Orleans evacuees are black, "crackheads come in all colors of the rainbow. So do racists."

"I'm not a racist. I'm a realist," said Friedman, adding that he is the only gubernatorial candidate addressing the issue of crime in Houston.

Political scientist Bruce Buchanan of the University of Texas at Austin said Friedman is "off the beaten path. There's no question about that. That's his whole schtick.

"By traditional standards, we would all dismiss this out of hand," Buchanan said. But he said that "given the fluidity (of the governor's race) ... we have to wait awhile. The die has not yet been cast."

Spokesmen for three of his opponents — incumbent Republican Rick Perry, Democrat Chris Bell and independent Carole Keeton Strayhorn — said they don't think marijuana should be legalized. Libertarian candidate James Werner said he would "move toward the legalization of all drugs."

Friedman also said he would like to put inmates to work outside the confines of prison.

"Let them paint poor people's houses, fix up the state parks, things like that," he said. "It would be good for them and good for us."

janet.elliott@chron.com; pfikac@express-news.net