REFORMS TO BE TESTED IN CALIFORNIA

Drugs: Nation Is Watching Closely As State Deals With Effects Of Two
Propositions.

It's more than likely that come June, the U.S. Supreme Court will uphold
federal attempts to shut down the Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative and
similar groups distributing marijuana. Medical use of the drug was
legalized by Proposition 215, the initiative that California voters
approved in 1996.

But however the court rules, voter-enacted medical marijuana laws in
Arizona, Maine, Colorado, Alaska, Washington, Oregon, California and Nevada
- -- plus one passed last year by the Hawaii Legislature -- will remain on
the books. One of every five Americans now lives in a place where state law
allows the medical use of pot.

More important, the broader campaign to reform the nation's drug laws -- a
campaign that's rolled up one victory after another in the states -- is
almost certain to go on. And because the reformers feel they've made their
point with medical marijuana initiatives, the focus is likely to shift to
broader and more controversial issues.

Late last month, as the high court was hearing arguments in the OCBC case,
Bill Zimmerman, who's been running the campaign, was looking at Florida,
Ohio and Michigan as possible new opportunities in the drive to reform laws
covering possession of all illicit drugs.

The states have been the battleground, but federal drug policy is the real
target. The state initiative process merely gives the reformers their
leverage. And on this issue the voters, at least in the West, have been far
more restive with the nation's drug policies than the politicians they send
to Congress.

In the past five years, with funding from billionaire financier George
Soros and a few other deep pockets, the resulting gap has given Zimmerman
14 victories in 15 attempts, making him one of the most successful
political operatives in this country.

Among those victories: the overwhelming vote last November for Proposition
36, the California initiative designed to sentence those convicted on
simple drug possession charges to treatment instead of prison; the medical
marijuana laws; reform of asset forfeiture laws in Utah and Oregon; laws
legalizing needle exchanges or legalizing the sale of needles in pharmacies.

So far, Washington has been slow to respond. Although the drug reformers
handily won most of their campaigns, the federal government has resisted
vigorously. In fall 1998, as a medical marijuana initiative was heading for
a vote in the District of Columbia, Congress voted to prohibit the district
from even counting the vote. Ten months later, when a federal court
overturned that prohibition, the count showed that the measure had passed
69 percent to 31 percent. Despite such votes, Attorney General John
Ashcroft vows to step up the drug war.

The Oakland case arose from the federal government's attempt to shut the
club down. Given the likelihood that juries would acquit AIDS or glaucoma
or cancer patients smoking marijuana to control nausea or other symptoms,
the government's most logical strategy was to stop distribution.

Yet as Zimmerman points out, even if the high court lets the government
shut down OCBC, it may not discourage the medical use of marijuana so much
as it fosters other efforts, as in Oregon, to have the state certify users
and create a decentralized supply system that makes any federal crackdown
nearly impossible. Under Oregon law, anyone may grow up to seven marijuana
plants for a state-certified user. Nevada, where voters last November
approved a medical marijuana initiative with a 65 percent majority, is now
setting up a similar system. Other states may follow.

In the meantime, California is rushing to implement Proposition 36, which
goes into effect July 1. That means vastly expanding treatment facilities,
finding the people to run them and making certain, through testing and
other means, that users successfully complete their treatment. But in some
counties there's still a lot of arm wrestling between probation and health
authorities over who gets the lion's share of the $120 million a year that
Proposition 36 provides for the addicts sentenced to treatment.

A recent poll by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press shows
that 74 percent of Americans believe that the drug war is a losing cause.
And while most are not ready to decriminalize drugs, a large majority
support policies allowing doctors to prescribe marijuana for their
patients. And in states such as California, sizable majorities are ready to
send most hard drug addicts to treatment rather than prison.

But those attitudes could easily change if the reform laws don't work in
the states where they've been enacted. Here again, California is likely to
become the bellwether state. The reformers think it can be done, but the
big tests still lie ahead.

Peter Schrag writes for the Sacramento Bee.