Pubdate: Sun, 26 May 2002
Source: Inquirer (PA)
Page: A2 Section: Newsmakers
Copyright: 2002 Philadelphia Newspapers Inc
Contact:  http://inq.philly.com/content/inquirer/home/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/340
Author: Gayle Ronan Sims

A HIGH-LEVEL VISIT, AND THE JOINT WAS JUMPIN'

This could only happen when a rock star and a former captain of industry
team up to check out operations in what is said to be the largest
industrial plant in the Southern Hemisphere: Somebody was smoking pot.

Irish rocker Bono and U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, touring a
Ford Motor Co. plant near Pretoria, South Africa, on Friday, took in
whiffs of marijuana smoke.  O'Neill had wanted to highlight the
3,500-worker plant for its model plan to test and offer treatment for
HIV-infected workers.

A Ford official said it was not unusual for workers to smoke pot in
the plants and said it was tolerated as long as safety was not
jeopardized.  (What was this guy smoking?)

Bono took it coolly.  "I was getting off on the diesel fumes myself,"
he said,.  A surprised O'Neilll said: "That's something I don't know
anything about." (And he certainly did not inhale.)

Their four-country African Tour aims to find out why so much aid has
done so little to improve life for the poor. 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake