MARIJUANA, GAY RIGHTS LEAD MYRIAD BALLOT QUESTIONS

Voters Have Chance To Decide Policy Issues

WASHINGTON - The often successful drive to legalize marijuana as a medicine
and the seldom victorious effort to allow doctor-assisted suicide will be
back on the ballot in some states next week amid an outpouring of voter issues.

Citizens with gripes or policy ideas that state legislatures won't pursue
will have the chance on Tuesday to test the popularity of their causes as
more than 200 proposals go before the voters in 42 states.

Once again, says the Initiative and Referendum Institute, a
Washington-based group that tracks citizen actions, voters will face
"politically diverse, emotional and very controversial issues."

What's different this year, the institute adds, "is the sheer magnitude of
the impact the election outcomes might have. Tremendous social and fiscal
changes are possible, and if they occur, the impact on our society will be
long lasting."

Perhaps the boldest collection of measures in any one state will be on
Maine's ballot. One proposal would make that state the second, after
Oregon, to create a "right to die" by authorizing doctor-assisted suicide
for "a terminally ill adult who is of sound mind."

Another proposal tests voters' willingness to put into effect a bill,
already passed by the Legislature, to bar discrimination against gays and
lesbians in access to jobs, housing, credit and public accommodations.
Twice before, such measures have been repealed by the voters. But polls
indicate that the new measure might prevail.

Maine will also vote on whether to allow video lottery games at horse
racing tracks, with 40 percent of the take to be passed out to local
governments.

Gay rights also figure on the ballots in three other states. After
Vermont's move this year to authorize gays and lesbians to join in
marriage-like "civil unions," Nebraska will be the next state to decide the
issue. On the ballot there is a proposal to ban civil unions, along with a
constitutional amendment to forbid to homosexuals to marry.

Nevada will also vote on a proposed ban on gay marriages. In similar votes
in the past, Alaska, California and Hawaii have barred same-sex marriages.
A total of 33 states now forbid that practice.

Oregon will decide whether to bar public school teachers from teaching
about homosexuality in a way that "encourages, promotes or sanctions" such
behavior.

On another marriage issue, Alabama will vote on whether to legalize
marriage between couples of different races - a symbolic vote only. A ban
included in the state constitution has been unconstitutional since a 1967
Supreme Court ruling, but Alabama has never formally acknowledged that fact
by repealing the ban. South Carolina voters lifted a similar ban in that
state two years ago.

Abortion figures in only one ballot contest this year: A Colorado proposal
would forbid abortions until after doctors and clinics have given pregnant
women information that might discourage them from ending their pregnancies.

The effort to use citizen initiatives to permit the use of marijuana as a
form of medicine continues this year, with ballot proposals in Colorado and
Nevada. Marijuana-as-medicine proposals have succeeded in the past in
Alaska, Arizona, California, Maine and Washington state, as well as in the
District of Columbia.

Alaskans will be asked to legalize the possession, use, cultivation and
sale of marijuana - something no state has yet done. If that measure
passed, the Justice Department would likely move to bar it from taking
effect, on the theory that the federal ban on marijuana takes precedence.

In California and Massachusetts, the ballots include proposals to provide
treatment, instead of jail time, for some users of illegal drugs.

Among the usual array of education questions, the ballots in California and
Michigan contain measures to authorize vouchers that students could use to
pay private school tuition. The Washington state ballot has a measure to
encourage charter schools as an alternative to regular public schools.

Proposals for using the money that states are being paid from the
settlement of lawsuits against the tobacco industry are on the ballot in
several states.

Voters in Arizona, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Oregon will decide whether to
direct legislatures to spend the money on such things as health insurance
for the elderly or low-income families and research on early detection of
diseases.

The English-only movement to promote official use of the language is
represented by measures in Oklahoma and Utah. In Arizona, voters will face
a proposed ban on bilingual education in the public schools.

Gun control reappears on the ballots in Colorado and Oregon, where voters
will decide whether to require criminal background checks before a purchase
made at a gun show can be completed.

Proposals on wildlife protection - and some offsetting proposals to protect
hunters' rights - are on the ballots in a handful of states.

Oregon is the state with the most measures, 26. A dozen or more are on the
ballots in Arizona, Alabama and Colorado.

In Maryland, the only measures on the ballot are two that were put there by
the General Assembly: a measure to allow for faster county takeover of
private property needed for redevelopment in Prince George's County and a
proposal to change the way officers of Cecil County are elected.