POT PETITION BACKERS VOW TO FIGHT RULING

Backers of two of three Nevada petitions to legalize marijuana and limit
smoking in public places vowed to challenge a ruling that they failed to
secure enough signatures to force the Legislature to act.

After receiving a legal opinion from Attorney General Brian Sandoval,
Secretary of State Dean Heller ruled Monday that the three petitions were dead.

"Our job is to protect the health and safety of citizens who agreed with us
and signed our petition," said Buffy Martin, government relations director
for the American Cancer Society, the backer of one anti-smoking measure.
"We owe it to them to challenge."

Bruce Mirken, communications chief for the Marijuana Policy Project, said
Heller's ruling violated his organization's due process rights.

None of the three petitions was signed by at least 83,156 residents, the
minimum the attorney general's office decided was needed to force the
Legislature to take them up during the 2005 session.

If legislators failed to act, the petitions would have been placed before
voters in 2006.

Heller called it unfortunate the petitions failed because the groups were
acting on advice from voting registrars that they needed 51,337 signatures
to qualify. Each petition exceeded that total.

Martin's organization was part of the Nevada Tobacco Prevention Coalition.
It collected 64,828 valid signatures on a petition to restrict smoking in
public places including restaurants, supermarkets and most bars.

"We never were told the signature number was a moving target," she said.
"We could have presented many more signatures."

The other anti-smoking petition, circulated by the Clean Indoor Act
organization, a group that included bars and restaurants, secured 74,347
valid signatures.

Spokeswoman Lee Haney said she doubted the group will sue over the
rejection but probably would circulate another petition.

"It would have been nice to know beforehand how many signatures we needed,"
she said. "We spent a lot of time and money gathering signatures."

The Clean Indoor Act petition would have permitted smoking to continue in
most bars and in casino restaurants.

Neither petition proposed to ban smoking on casino floors.

Mirken's organization financed the Regulation of Marijuana petition drive
to induce the Legislature to legalize an ounce of marijuana. It secured
69,261 valid signatures.

He said that as late as Nov. 19, Heller told petition-gatherers that the
2002 election was the basis for the signature requirement.