NEWLAND LOOKING FOR MARIJUANA VOTE

Bob Newland, a Hermosa resident who has lobbied for three years to the
state legislature to legalize the use of marijuana for medicinal
purposes as well as the growing of industrial hemp has given up on the
legislature and is now planning to circulate petitions to put
industrial hemp and medicinal marijuana on the 2002 November ballot.
Newland is the president of SoDakNORML, an affiliate of the National
Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. SoDakNORML has 80
members statewide, he said.

>From Dec. 26, 2000, until Jan. 29, 2001, the South Dakota Industrial
Hemp Council, of which Newland is a founding member, along with the
Marijuana Policy Project (an advocacy group in Washington), conducted
a poll in which 505 South Dakota residents were interviewed about
growing hemp and medicinal marijuana. Newland said 95 percent of
those polled opposed sending people to jail for using medicinal
marijuana, 85 percent polled thought farmers should be able to grow
hemp, and 81 percent thought the law should be changed to allow for
marijuana under a doctor's advisement without the fear of arrest and
imprisonment.

The poll was taken statewide, in both small towns and large towns
proportionally, Newland said. He added that 500 voters are polled
nationwide in presidential preference polls. The results of the polls,
combined with lawmakers killing two bills that would have allowed hemp
growing and medicinal marijuana, led Newland to believe the
legislature is out of touch with the wants of South Dakota voters, he
said.

"I realized the legislature is absolutely hopeless," he said. "We
present credible testimony to people who are supposed to have the
interests of South Dakota voters, especially farmers, in mind, and
they shrug it off because of the ludicrous testimony of the Highway
Patrol that marijuana growers would hide their plants in the hemp fields."

Law-enforcement officials have long stated that the production of hemp
would complicate their efforts to combat the war on drugs. They say
marijuana and industrial hemp plants look the same. However, hemp
contains very little tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the active ingredient
in marijuana that creates a "high." Newland said that $200 million in
raw hemp and hemp products is imported into the United States each
year.

During the legislative session, three South Dakota residents, all
medical marijuana users, testified before the legislature how they are
subject to fear of arrest and imprisonment for using marijuana to help
ease what ails them.

The legislature decided many years ago that marijuana serves no
medicinal purposes. "Despite the anecdotal evidence of tens of
thousands of people, they still maintain this preposterous statute
that it has no medical value," Newland said.

Newland will begin getting signatures for industrial hemp May 6, the
first day he can do so under state law. He must turn in at least
13,010 names by May 5, 2002. He will wait to get signatures for
medicinal marijuana until July, because of an April Supreme Court
hearing that will decide whether medicinal marijuana defenses can be
used in federal marijuana cases.

"Even if they say 'no, we're not going to allow common sense in
federal courts,' we're going to ask the people of South Dakota to
allow it in South Dakota courts," Newland said. "How would you like to
be the one to tell a sick or dying person they can't have the medicine
that makes them feel better?"

Once the petitions start circulating, Newland said it will take no
time to get the signatures required for the issue to reach the
November 2002 ballots.

"It will take us only two days to get 16,000 signatures," he said.
"Four out of five people who see it will sign it. People will seek it
out to sign it."

This petition is part of a three-part process, Newland said. They
would like to see the legalization of both industrial hemp and
medicinal use of marijuana. The third part will begin once the others
are out of the way, Newland said.

"We will attack the prohibition of a psychoactive substance that is
demonstratively less destructive than alcohol and cigarettes," he
said. "The drug warriors continue to lump these issues together and
cloud them, thus making it hard to talk sense about the issue. We want
to take these issues and separate them."

Newland is also confident that once the issues reach the ballot, 70
percent of the people who vote in 2002 will vote yes for industrial
hemp and medicinal marijuana.

"By far the most entertaining issues on the 2002 ballot will be the
industrial hemp and medicinal marijuana issues," Newland said. "It
will be entertaining to watch the contortions of the attorney general
and law enforcement officials tell South Dakota farmers why they
shouldn't be able to grow hemp, despite that fact 39 other countries
grow it, and despite the fact Canadian hemp is trucked from Canada
past barely-surviving South Dakota farms everyday."

To kick off the petition campaign, the SoDakNORML is having its 1st
Annual Hemp Hoe Down at the Classics Bar and grill in Piedmont,
Sunday, April 1 at 2 p.m. Newland said there will be door prizes,
auctions and speeches by himself and Alex White Plume, a Native
American whose hemp crop was taken by law enforcement.