Pubdate: Sat, 06 Apr 2013
Source: New Mexican, The (Santa Fe, NM)
Copyright: 2013 McClatchy Newspapers
Contact: http://www.santafenewmexican.com/SendLetter/
Website: http://www.santafenewmexican.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/695
Author: Rob Hotakainen, McClatchy Newspapers

WITH NEW MOMENTUM TO LEGALIZE, POT BACKERS AIM HIGH

WASHINGTON - As one of the nation's top marijuana lobbyists, Allen 
St. Pierre has come to believe in his product, which is why he tries 
to smoke high-potency, one-toke weed every night if possible. It's an 
experience that St. Pierre, the executive director of the National 
Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, commonly known as 
NORML, hopes more Americans will soon enjoy, with no fear of 
prosecution. After working for marijuana legalization for 23 years, 
St. Pierre said he pinches himself every day as he watches events 
unfold across the United States.

Since 1996, 18 states have approved marijuana for use as medicine.

But lobbyists scored their top achievement in a generation in 
November, when voters in Washington state and Colorado approved the 
recreational use by adults. Thirteen states have decriminalized the 
possession of marijuana, removing the possibility of jail time.

Now, in a flurry of new momentum, pro-marijuana bills have been 
introduced in 27 statehouses this year. Nine would tax and regulate 
marijuana like alcohol, while the others would allow more states to 
lessen penalties or to legalize marijuana for medicinal purposes. On 
the recreational front, lobbyists expect to prevail at the ballot box 
again, possibly first with Alaska voters next year. And they're 
eyeing the biggest prize of all: California, along with others, in 
2016. On Thursday, a new poll by the Pew Research Center showed that 
for the first time, a majority of Americans favor legal pot. On 
Capitol Hill, a few dozen Democrats send representatives to 
study-group meetings to figure out how to move pro-legalization bills 
introduced in February. And with spring here, the One-Hitters, a team 
of marijuana reformers, are ready for another season in Washington's 
Congressional Softball League, where they'll play ball against 
elected leaders. For St. Pierre, who recalls when he felt like an 
outcast in Washington, it adds up to one indisputable fact: Marijuana 
has gone mainstream, and the legalization push has grown so powerful 
that it will be hard to stop. "The genie's out of the bottle," he 
said, sitting at his desk next to a plastic pot plant, just two 
blocks from the White House. Opponents say the pro-marijuana leaders 
are deluding themselves. "There must be something about marijuana 
that induces false optimism," said John Lovell, a Sacramento, 
Calif.-based lobbyist for the California Narcotics Officers 
Association, which helped defeat a 2010 ballot measure to make pot 
legal in the Golden State. "They won two ballot measures, and there's 
euphoria over that, but there are a whole host of ways this could play out."

Bills to tax and regulate marijuana for recreational use have been 
introduced by state lawmakers this year in Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, 
Massachusetts, Nevada, New Hampshire, Oregon, Rhode Island and 
Vermont. The legislation is dead for the year in Hawaii, Maryland and 
New Hampshire. The legalization efforts are worrisome for Joyce 
Nalepka, president of Drug-Free Kids: America's Challenge, based in 
Silver Spring, Md. The public is awash in misinformation because the 
media have not done their job in warning the public about carcinogens 
in marijuana and other health risks, she said.

"Isn't that what their job is?" Nalepka asked. "I've always thought 
the media gets the facts and spreads it to the public."

Nalepka said the media should not even be using the term "medical 
marijuana" because the drug has never been approved by the Food and 
Drug Administration and it does nothing but confuse kids, who think 
marijuana has medicinal qualities and are more likely to use it. 
Marijuana advocates, though, say it sends the wrong message to kids 
to have uncompassionate laws that criminalize ill patients who want 
to relieve suffering.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom