MAN AIMS TO PUT HEMP, MEDICAL MARIJUANA ON STATE'S 2002 BALLOT

PIERRE -- A man who's given up on trying the change the minds of people who
represent South Dakota voters is taking his message to the voters themselves.

Bob Newland, president of the SoDakNORML, an affiliate of the National
Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, wanted this year's
Legislature to legalize the use of marijuana for medical purposes and the
growing of industrial hemp.

Lawmakers instead killed two bills that would have allowed medicinal use of
marijuana and another bill that would have allowed hemp production.

"It simply confirms my estimation of the Legislature," Newland says.
"They're hopeless."

Now Newland is planning to circulate petitions to put industrial hemp and
medical marijuana on the 2002 November ballot.

Newland must first file petitions with the Legislative Research Council,
which has 15 days to study them before turning the petitions over to the
secretary of state's office, says Chris Nelson, state election supervisor.

"Typically, that's just suggestions on how it can be improved," Nelson said.

Under state law, Newland can begin collecting signatures on May 1 of this
year. He must turn in at least 13,010 names by May 5, 2002.

Nelson says he has not been contacted by Newland.

"That would be very first official contact that we would have that
something is going on, and at this point we have not seen that," Nelson says.

Newland says the effort is a project of the South Dakota Cannabis
Coalition, and he's confident enough signatures can be obtained to put
medicinal marijuana use and the growing of industrial hemp on the ballot.

Newland says people will begin collecting signatures in May on the
industrial hemp petitions and will do likewise about July 1 with the
medicinal marijuana petitions.

"It will take us about 36 hours to get 16,000 on a medical marijuana or
industrial hemp petition," Newland says. "Four out of five people who see
that petition will sign it."

Newland also thinks both issues will easily pass at the polls.

Law enforcement officials say hemp production would complicate their
efforts to combat the drug trade. They say industrial hemp plants look the
same as marijuana plants, although hemp has very little of the active
ingredient that makes pot smokers high.