MARIJUANA PETITIONERS CALL THE LAW A 'MISERABLE FAILURE'

CARSON CITY - The head of the committee calling for legalization of
marijuana in Nevada says the group does not support use of the drug
but rather believes the current prohibition is bad policy and "a
miserable failure."

Neal Levine, of the Committee to Regulate and Control Marijuana, said
instead of banning pot, the proposed statute on Nevada's 2006 ballot
would set up a system of manufacture and sales for small amounts of
marijuana in Nevada. It would allow possession and use of an ounce or
less of marijuana by adults in their own homes but would double the
penalties for selling to minors and prohibit use by those under 21.
It would also provide for creation and licensing of retail stores to
sell small amounts of pot and tax those sales. Half the revenue would
go to the state treasury and the other half to drug and alcohol programs.

The goal, he said, is to "pull marijuana out of the criminal market
where we're financing the activities of violent gangs and drug
dealers and put it into a tightly regulated market where we can have
some controls and not penalize adults for something that doesn't harm
another person or property."

Levine said 770,000 people were arrested in the United States on
marijuana offenses - the vast majority for possession.

"Current marijuana laws just don't work," he said. "If the goal of
prohibition was to eradicate marijuana use and the marijuana supply,
you'd be hard pressed to find another policy that's more of a
miserable failure."

He emphasized that the committee and its parent organization the
Marijuana Policy Project don't advocate marijuana use. He said they
want to break the chain of criminal providers and take drug profits
away from them.

"What we're saying is current laws don't work so let's pull marijuana
out of the criminal market."

Levine rejected the often-repeated law enforcement theory that
marijuana is a "gateway drug" that leads to use of hard drugs
including methamphetamine, cocaine and heroin. He said a 1999
National Institute of Health study found no evidence marijuana is a
gateway drug.

"If that were true we'd have 100 million hard drug addicts in the
country because almost 50 percent of the people in America have tried
marijuana," he said.

The ballot question asking voters to change the law to legalize
possession of an ounce or less of pot and to set up a system of
regulated stores to tax and sell it is already on the 2006 ballot,
qualified by petition more than a year ago.

Levine said organizers are depending on a volunteer-based, grassroots
campaign, knocking on doors and calling people to get out the vote.

"What we're saying is we have a bad policy. Let's replace it with
good policy," he said.