Ginsburg Says He Used Drugs

Supreme Court nominee Douglas H. Ginsburg smoked marijuana while he was a professor at Harvard Law School during the late 1970s and early 1980s, National Public Radio (NPR) reported yesterday.

Ginsburg issued a statement yesterday, admitting that he used drugs in the 1960s and 1970s, but did not say whether he had done so at the Law School.

"Earlier today, I was asked whether I had ever used drugs. To the best of my recollection, once as a college student in the '60s, and then on a few occasions in the '70s, I used marijuana," the nominee said yesterday.

"That was the only drug I ever used. I have not used it since. It was a mistake, and I regret it."

Nina Totenberg, legal affairs correspondent for NPR, said she interviewed "at least a half dozen of his friends and colleagues who saw him smoking marijuana when he was a professor at Harvard Law School in the 1970s and perhaps in the early 1980s. He on occasion brought the marijuana."

Most Law School professors and administrators contacted yesterday refused to comment on the story.

But Law Professor Hal C. Scott, a friend of Ginsburg since high school, told the Associated Press yesterday that he only knew of three instances when the nominee smoked marijuana.

Scott said the party which Totenberg referred to in her report was given at the home of someone associated with the Harvard Law School. When the marijuana was offered, he and his wife left, he said.

Scott said he learned later that Ginsburg, then about 31, had smoked the drug.

"I objected because it was illegal and told Doug afterwards. He heard what I hadto say. He basically agreed with me."

"To me, the main issue as far as he wasconcerned was that it was illegal. The point isthat he said in the statement that it was amistake,' Scott added.

Scott said he has never tried marijuana andnever saw Ginsburg smoking it. He said marijuanasmoking was commonplace in his peer group in the1970s.

Former law students who were at Harvard duringGinsburg's tenure said last night that they didnot know of any students who smoked marijuana withprofessors, nor did they know which professors, ifany, had used the drug.

"I never had any experience like that, and Iwould be surprised if it were a common thing,"said Christopher P. Davis who graduated from theLaw School in 1980. "I would think this would killthe nomination. common or not. People in Iowaaren't going to understand that kind of thing."

While many Republican senators respondedcautiously, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), amember of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said."You like to think people who are appointed to theSupreme Court respect the law." And one seniorDemocratic congressional aide said Ginsburg was "agoner because the Republicans will not be able toabide him as their nominee."

President Reagan, who nominated Ginsburg lastweek to replace Justice Lewis F. Powell, said thathe stood behind his choice.

"The President accepts his [Ginsburg's]statement, doesn't feel that it influences hisjudicial qualifications, and the President standsby his nomination," White House spokesman MarlinFitzwater said yesterday. Reagan's previousnominee, Judge Robert H. Bork, lost hisconfirmation bid two weeks ago by a Senate vote of58-42.

Attorney General Edwin Meese III. one ofGinsburg's most ardent supporters, said heapplauded Ginsburg's statement. "As he states, hisaction, taken during his younger days, was amistake. It certainly does not affect hisqualifications to sit on the Supreme Court, and heshould be confirmed expeditiously," Meese said.

Meese, who was in Cambridge last night for ajudicial conference at the Kennedy School, told aCrimson reporter that he had no further comment onthe case. As he entered the Charles Hotel where hewas staying, he said that he had a lot of homeworkto do