Nov. 4, 2002

Nevadans to Consider Legalizing Marijuana

BY STEVE FRIESS
GLOBE CORRESPONDENT

An elderly woman wearing a string of pearls. A balding baby boomer in a gray suit. A mother with long, blond hair, gazing at the sleeping infant cradled in her arms. They may not seem like typical boosters of legalized drugs, but they all joined a crowd of volunteers who turned out on a sun-splashed autumn afternoon to film a television advertisement promoting a Nevada ballot initiative that would decriminalize marijuana.

''We're Nevadans,'' the wholesome-looking assembly shouted for the camera, ''and we're voting `Yes' on Question 9!''

The ballot question Nevadans will consider tomorrow would decriminalize adult possession of up to 3 ounces of marijuana for private recreational purposes and require the state to regulate its sale and production.

The measure is the handiwork of the Marijuana Policy Project, based in Washington, D.C., which chose libertarian Nevada as its test state for the most serious challenge to the nation's marijuana prohibition since the drug was banned by Congress in 1937.

''This movement is going mainstream,'' said Billy Rogers, a Texas political consultant sent by the Marijuana Policy Project to set up Nevadans for Responsible Law Enforcement and run a $1.6 million campaign funded largely by Peter B. Lewis, former CEO of Progressive Insurance Co., who has become a marijuana activist.

''They want you to believe that everybody who supports this is a burned-out pothead, but most people who support this have never tried marijuana,'' Rogers said. ''They simply believe in the freedom to use it in the privacy of their own homes.''

While the measure is embattled - last week's Las Vegas Review-Journal poll showed 60 percent of likely voters oppose it - it has nonetheless rocked the antidrug establishment, attracting two campaign visits since August by President Bush's drug policy director, John P. Walters, and a $200,000 television campaign funded by major Vegas resorts, which don't view marijuana users as the sort of upscale clientele they hope to draw.

''We don't need a 24-hour Grateful Dead concert on the Strip,'' said Billy Vassiliadis, a top Nevada Democratic political consultant.

If the measure passes, Nevadans would need to pass it again in 2004 to make it effective under the state's rules for amending its constitution.

Support has come from unexpected quarters. Among those appearing in pro-marijuana television commercials are popular state Assemblywoman Chris Guinchigliani, who is a former head of the state's largest teachers' union, and retired Las Vegas police officer Andy Anderson, former chief of the state's umbrella union for officers, who believes police waste precious time in busting stoners. Even the Review-Journal endorsed Question 9 to ''bring compassion and common sense to drug laws.''

''The fact that Question 9 is being seriously considered is fairly momentous right there,'' said Charles Whitebread, a law professor at the University of Southern California. ''If it gets even a serious percentage of the vote, it will say that a serious percentage of Nevadans are skeptical of present criminal prohibitions. That will be the first chink in the armor of those who support criminal prohibitions.''

Much of the effort to appeal to voters by the pro-marijuana campaign has focused on the one area of the debate that the nation seems to largely agree: that patients whose doctors recommend marijuana to relieve pain and increase appetite ought to be allowed to use it.

Since 1996, eight states have passed laws legalizing medical marijuana, including Nevada, even as the federal government continues to maintain it is illegal and occasionally stages raids on marijuana clubs. A poll by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press last year showed 73 percent of Americans support medical marijuana.

Yet despite the fact that medical marijuana use is technically legal in Nevada, patients who qualify must risk arrest by buying marijuana from drug dealers.

The Bush administration believes the trend toward legalization is the result of pro-marijuana advocates' blowing smoke, confusing well-meaning Americans with the medical issue even though the drug has not received Federal Drug Administration approval.

Far from harmless, Walters insisted, marijuana is ''an addictive gateway drug'' to cocaine and heroin that accounts for 60 percent of the 6 million Americans in drug rehab programs.

''It's the single biggest source of dependency of any of the illegal drugs, more than twice as important as the next most important drug, cocaine,'' Walters said.

Rogers countered that Marijuana Policy Project data show that 11 million Americans presently use marijuana with little trouble, and that 80 million have tried it. One reason he viewed marijuana legalization as inevitable is because ''there are now two generations of people in this country who have tried it or know someone who tried it, and they know that the drug czar is lying about its effects.''

While some in Nevada businesses are high on Question 9 - some travel agents say it will make Vegas the ''American Amsterdam'' - the Strip megaresorts aren't. This would bring Nevada ''the most liberal drug laws in the union,'' said GOP consultant Sig Rogich, a former aide to President George H. W. Bush. ''Las Vegas would become an ongoing Jay Leno joke.''

Others suggested that Las Vegas's image wouldn't suffer much. ''They're always trying to give Las Vegas this lah-dee-dah image, but people come here to gamble, to party, to have fun,'' said Patti Shock, chairwoman of the Harrah Tourism and Convention Department at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas. ''I don't know what they're so panicked about.''

Robert Kampia, executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project, said the stigma surrounding marijuana is starting to subside.

''If we win, we've taken a huge step forward and showed there's more support for our issues,'' Kampia said. ''But if we lose 48-52, that would still be an all-time record.''

Go to list of Boston Globe stories