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Show Modine and marijuana: a prescription for Senate? Modine's position on drug laws dovetails nicely with his assessment of most governmental attempts at regulating "victimless" activities such as prostitution, gambling and sex. His less-is-more philosophy of government is reflected in his campaign cam-paign slogan, "Live Long and Prosper Pro-sper With Less Government. ' ' Other Libertarian causes espoused es-poused by Modine include, elim- t By MARK EDDINGTON Staff Writer OoUNTIFUL Maury Modine, a pipefitter at the Phillips Refinery in Woods Cross and Libertarian Liber-tarian candidate for the U.S. Senate, has received as much recognition Oom outside Utah as he has from 1 thin the state. Tommy Chong of Cheech and Chong famerecently endorsed Modine and 2nd Congressional Di strict c andidat e B ob Wal drop during an appearance at the Comedy Com-edy Circuit in Midvale. His only instate in-state endorsement is from his little brother. Chong, who is a fellow Libertarian, Liber-tarian, agrees with Modine that marijuana and all other forms of illegal il-legal drugs should be legalized and that drug laws do more harm than good. Modine views Chong 's endorsement endorse-ment as something of a mixed blessing. bless-ing. "Tommy joked the last candidate can-didate he endorsed took a nosedive in the polls," Modine explained, laughing. All comedy club appearances and endorsements aside, Modine is quick to say his candidacy is a serious seri-ous matter and so is his advocacy for the legalization of marijuana, a drug he said is widely misunderstood and has great value for medicinal and other purposes. A former marijuana user, Modine heads "Mood for a Day," a Utah group that promotes legalizing the drug. The West Jordan resident said he began experimenting with marijuana mari-juana when he was 19 after he was caught up and injured in a gang fight. He recalled experiencing terrible headaches after the incident and said marijuana helped to alleviate alle-viate the pressure and pain. "I don't use it anymore. 1 stopped using it some time ago," he said, although he was unable to pinpoint pin-point precisely when. seat on the South Jordan city council, coun-cil, but lost to Bruce Huff. He also ran unsuccessfully for the Utah Legislature. "When you're a Libertarian, you automatically start about 85 points down in the polls," he said. Nevertheless, he said he has been heartened by the strong showing of other party members across the state and said co-workers and other potential voters have been receptive. recep-tive. Modine has made several appearances ap-pearances on KTKK talk radio and is scheduled to make another Feb. 6 at 9 p.m. He is also scheduled to speak at the North Davis County Library at 3:30 p.m. on Feb. 8. Other appearances in Davis County are in the planning stage. "We're pretty well booked up through next November," he explained. The message Modine brings to voters is that there is no real difference differ-ence between Republicans and Democrats. He claims both parties are following the socialist platform of 1927, calling redevelopment agencies' establishment of blight areas the equivalent of communist governments' ownership of land. He said the federal government has three essential tasks: Providing for the national defense, ensuring states don't impose tariffs as barriers bar-riers to free trade, and providing money to fund the judicial system. A move toward less governmental interference and more self government govern-ment would be a move in the right direction, he said. Modine acknowledges he faces an uphill struggle for money to finance his senate campaign. He calls Libertarians a "tight-knit" group and expects help from party members outside the state. "I'm not very good at asking people for money. I've always considered con-sidered myself as more of a philanthropist," philan-thropist," he added. MAURY MODINE in a ting tariffs and subsidies for. farmers, elimination of mandatory income taxes and minimum wage laws, and increasing the number of nurses and doctors to lower health care costs. "You increase the supply supp-ly and you lower the price," Libertarian Liber-tarian literature suggests. Another health care crisis solution Modine and fellow party members advocate is a congressional anti-trust investigation in-vestigation of the health care industry. in-dustry. Modine, 35, is not discouraged by his two earlier unsuccessful bids for elective office. He received 30 percent of the vote in his bid for a |