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Nevada Stirring The Pot With Legalization Proposal
Pubdate: Sun, 3 Nov 2002
Source: Houston Chronicle (TX)
Copyright: 2002 Houston Chronicle Publishing Company Division, Hearst Newspaper
Contact: http://www.chron.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/198
Author: Kim Cobb
NEVADA STIRRING THE POT WITH LEGALIZATION PROPOSAL
How many joints can be rolled from 3 ounces of marijuana? This is a serious
debate in Nevada.
Residents of the Western state will vote Tuesday on a state constitutional
amendment to legalize adult possession of no more than 3 ounces of pot. It
may have looked quixotic at the onset, but the Nevada campaign has
flourished at the hands of a Texas political handler the chief legalization
foe calls a "carpetbagger."
"Apparently she doesn't like Texans much," says Billy Rogers, ruefully.
"He's running amok," is the way Nevada pot opponent Sandy Heverly puts it.
Rogers may seem like a guy who's drawn to lost causes: He was manager of
Garry Mauro's ill-fated campaign to unseat the incumbent Gov. George W.
Bush in 1998. But legalizing recreational pot smoking is an issue with legs
in Las Vegas, and that's where a majority of Nevada's voters are.
Nevada requires that initiatives be approved twice before they become law.
So if the pot vote passes on Tuesday, the debate continues and Nevadans
will vote again in 2004.
Meanwhile, federal drug czar John Walters is aggressively lobbying Nevada
voters to just say no to Question Nine. And the local debate has taken on a
surreal quality as Rogers and Heverly argue in front of the TV cameras over
just how many joints you can roll out of 3 ounces of marijuana.
"We got 250 joints out of 3 ounces!" Heverly crowed.
"That's the greatest visual thing we have, because people are actually
amazed at the amount of 3 ounces of marijuana," Heverly said. "It was worth
the effort of all the hours it took to roll those joints."
The Nevada referendum is being bankrolled by a Washington-based group
called the Marijuana Policy Project, whose chief benefactor is former
Progressive Auto Insurance CEO Peter Lewis. He and two other like-minded
men, philanthropist George Soros and University of Phoenix founder John
Sperling, are the deep pockets behind more than a dozen successful drug
liberalization votes since 1996.
Nevada's vote is one of several drug liberalization issues on Tuesday's ballot.
Measures in Washington, D.C., and Ohio would give nonviolent drug offenders
access to treatment instead of jail time. Voters in Arizona will decide
whether to eliminate the penalty for possessing marijuana for personal use,
and San Francisco voters will decide whether to authorize the city to grow
and distribute marijuana for medical use.
Every recent election cycle has featured a growing number of such votes --
evidence that attitudes about drug law, if not drugs themselves, are changing.
Drug liberalization advocates across the country have been gleefully
touting the results of a Time/CNN poll taken in recent weeks that found 34
percent of those surveyed nationally want pot to be totally legalized, 80
percent support marijuana for medical purposes, and 72 percent think
recreational use deserves no more than a fine.
Nevada voters already have indicated a willingness to rethink marijuana
policy. They approved the use of marijuana for medical purposes in 2000,
and the state Legislature reduced possession of 1 ounce or less to a
misdemeanor last year.
But opponents to Nevada's Question Nine were caught flat-footed by the
110,000 signatures Rogers and crew gathered in 40 days calling for the
legalization vote. Heverly, leader of Nevada's Stop DUI advocacy group,
didn't start fighting in earnest until September.
Question Nine calls for removing criminal penalties for the possession for
personal use of up to 3 ounces of marijuana by anyone 21 or older. It also
would authorize the state of Nevada to provide a system to regulate, tax
and sell the substance in state stores.
Legalizing possession of even small amounts of marijuana would put Nevada
in direct conflict with federal anti-drug laws.
Midsummer polling showed people in Nevada were evenly split on the issue of
legalizing small amounts of marijuana. But Heverly's coalition, Nevadans
Against Legalizing Marijuana, began opposition advertising in recent weeks,
and public sentiment appears to be shifting.
The most recent statewide survey, by Mason-Dixon Polling and Research Inc.
in late October for the Las Vegas Review-Journal, showed opposition for
Question Nine has grown to 60 percent.
Rogers dismisses the validity of the latest poll, saying demographics are
on his side.
"They were polling people who say they vote in every election," Rogers
said. "That might make sense in Texas in an off-year election, but not here."
Forty percent of the absentee ballots cast in Clark County, home to Las
Vegas, have been by a much younger group of people than those who
traditionally vote, Rogers said.
People who vote in every election are usually over the age of 55, Rogers
said, adding that his Question Nine draws support from every age group
under the age of 55.
"I can tell you right now Clark County is a dead heat," Rogers said.
Unlike Heverly, Rogers says he is not surprised at the level of support
he's seeing. He cited Time magazine's poll-based assertion, released this
week, that as many as 100 million Americans have tried marijuana, and most
of them are under 55.
"They didn't go crazy, they didn't lose their job, and they're not 40 years
old and still living with mom and dad," Rogers said. "The vast majority of
those people are responsible adults, raising families. So we do well among
people who may have tried marijuana in the past."
Rogers freely admits he used to smoke pot. But he's passionate on the
subject of decriminalizing marijuana, he says, because the punitive
approach to the war on drugs has caused more harm than good.
"I was fortunate when I was younger -- I didn't get arrested," Rogers said.
"But a lot of my friends did. These are friends who've gone on to become
responsible adults -- some of them work for the state of Texas.
"It's just, to me, such a waste of law enforcement resources and such an
unwinnable war," Rogers said.
That's the party line behind most of the drug liberalization measures
sponsored by Lewis, Soros and Sperling. But opponents say those kinds of
statements deliberately cloud the real agenda.
"They look at Nevada as being very fertile ground to reach their goal --
which is to legalize all drugs everywhere," Heverly said. Having spent the
past 30 years trying to reduce alcohol-related traffic deaths, Heverly said
she dreads a wave of marijuana-related fatalities.
"If nothing else, haven't we learned anything from the senseless death and
destruction that alcohol has caused our society?" Heverly said. "Why do we
want to throw marijuana into the mix?"
Heverly says she knows why the fight is being waged in her state.
"I believe the image many people have of Nevada -- and specifically Las
Vegas -- is one of `anything goes.' Many view us as the armpit of the
world," Heverly said. "But the real Las Vegas, the real Nevada, goes beyond
the glitz and glamour of the Strip and the downtown area. You have real
families that go to work every day, raise their children, go to church and
live what some people would view as normal lives."
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The following summary was in a box within the article:
VOTERS CONSIDER LENIENT POT PENALTIES
Voters in Arizona and Nevada on Tuesday are considering measures that would
reduce or eliminate penalties for marijuana possession.
Nevada
Allow the use and possession of three ounces or less of marijuana by people
21 years or older.
Provide a system of regulation for the cultivation, taxation, sale and
distribution of marijuana.
Arizona
Decriminalize marijuana possession for personal use.
Require distribution of marijuana free of charge by the Department of
Public Safety if a person's physician provides written documentation.
Increase the maximum sentence for violent crimes committed under the
influence of drugs.
Eliminate mandatory minimum sentences.
Require parole for people convicted of personal possession of a controlled
substance unless they are a danger to the public.
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