DRUG REFORMERS ARE REGROUPING

The post-election e-mails and faxes from the Drug Policy Alliance tried to
put as cheerful a face on it as possible, noting in a subhead that since
1996 voters have approved 19 of 24 state drug-policy reform initiatives.
But releases before the election had crowed that voters had placed
themselves on the reform side 17 of 19 times. The reformers lost three and
won two on Nov. 5, and the ones they lost were more prominent and
potentially more important.

The midterm election this year, then, was a significant setback for a drug
reform movement that had been riding fairly high with shrewdly selected
issues centered around medical marijuana patients and the idea of treatment
rather than incarceration for non-violent offenders.

Time Magazine's cover story for Nov. 11 (released before the election)
highlighted this success and predicted more, noting that 80 percent of
Americans support making marijuana available medicinally and 72 percent
prefer fines rather than jail for marijuana possession. Although it
included more than its fair share of bad puns and "clever" winks to
hippieness (a trivializing temptation no journalist seems able to resist),
the Time article included a fairly accurate assessment of the relatively
small health risks associated with smoking cannabis and acknowledged (as
government spokesmen almost never do) that there is solid evidence for some
medical benefits.

But the voters spoiled the story, rejecting a measure in Ohio that would
have provided treatment rather than incarceration for simple possession
offenders (similar to Prop. 36, which California voters passed and which is
working fairly well), and measures that would have effectively legalized
possession of small amounts of marijuana for any purpose in Nevada and Arizona.

It wasn't a clean sweep for the drug warriors. Voters in Washington, D.C.,
approved a measure to require treatment instead of jail with a 78 percent
majority -- but Congress, which runs the district, probably won't allow it
to go into effect. In Massachusetts, 13 of 19 local nonbinding resolutions
instructing legislators to vote for making marijuana possession a civil
rather than criminal offense passed.

In San Francisco voters approved a measure directing city officials to look
into having the city grow and distribute cannabis to patients who qualify
for it.

On balance, however, the election results were a setback for drug reformers.

Consequently I was especially interested to attend a national conference of
the Marijuana Policy Project and Students for Sensible Drug Policies held
last weekend at the Anaheim Hilton. The pre-publicity suggested it would be
something of a triumphal affair, celebrating Tuesday's victories and
planning the next steps. It turned out to be more sober and sobering: a
reassessment of where the movement stands.

When I talked to Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy
Alliance, which gets about a third of its funding from billionaire currency
speculator George Soros, the preceding Friday, he was feeling fairly
down-in-the-dumps. It wasn't just the election results but a funding crisis
that had come up that week, he said.

Ethan confessed that he didn't know where to go from here. Should the
movement return to a narrow focus on medical marijuana? Should it withdraw
from the political arena for a while and focus on educational activities?
Should it concentrate on court cases? He said he just didn't know.

By Sunday, however, when he gave the featured luncheon address, he was
considerably more upbeat. He still didn't know what the next steps would
be, he said, but he felt confident the drug reform movement would be up to
taking them. Still, he challenged those in the audience to be more
realistic, more willing to empathize with people who are uneasy about
reform, more open to forming coalitions, more determined to do the hard and
sometimes thankless work of persuasion and organizing.

"You can't educate your parents unless you can put yourselves in their
shoes," he told the students in the audience, "and understand the fears of
so many American parents, who have the occasional desire to put their
budding adolescents in a cocoon for a few years to protect them from all
the perils out there. Parents know they have to let go and let their kids
grow up and face their own problems, but they don't want to see them get
hurt or become zombies."

Drug reformers tend to be either leftists, who see drug law reform as a
social justice issue, or libertarians, who see it as a freedom issue,
Nadelmann noted. Unless they are willing to work with others who don't
necessarily share all their values, to compromise on strategy and tactics,
to reach out to those who are decent but skeptical, they will not win.

He placed the American flag on the podium, led the audience in the pledge
of allegiance, and urged drug reformers to "embrace our Americanism" and
communicate to others that those who criticize the drug war are in tune
with the hope of the founders that this would be a country "with liberty
and justice for all."

What moved Ethan Nadelmann toward more optimistic determination? I think it
was seeing a comprehensive program that stressed bringing others in,
working with churches, unions and professional associations, and keeping
the message non-hysterical and grounded in solid science.

Two doctors presented their latest findings on the usefulness of medical
marijuana, and a panel of doctors vowed to be more active within the
medical community. Sessions were devoted to communicating with the media
and dissecting government propaganda. A new group, Americans for Safe
Access, synopsized its comprehensive training program for medical marijuana
patients and activists. A panel of conservatives, including Orange County
Superior Court Judge James P. Gray, explained how to promote alliances
across ideological lines.

I talked to Rob Kampia, president of the Marijuana Policy Project, about
why the initiatives in Ohio, Nevada and Arizona had failed. He noted the
extraordinary activism of "drug czar" John Walters in all three states,
which probably included the illegal use of taxpayer funds in political
campaigns (independent journalist Dan Forbes did a fairly comprehensive
article for alternet.com) and featured numerous distortions, but said that
probably wasn't the deciding factor.

In Ohio, the attorney general, who writes the ballot summaries, included
dismissal of charges but didn't mention drug treatment, skewing the
perception of a measure virtually identical to California's Prop. 36.

Kampia acknowledged that decriminalizing possession of up to three ounces
of marijuana (Nevada) and virtual decriminalization (Arizona) were probably
premature -- though he noted that 39 percent in Nevada and 43 percent in
Arizona voted "yes," which are high-water marks for outright
decriminalization, more than support it in most polls. He noted that
Republicans had an especially effective get-out-the-vote effort in Nevada
this year, and Republicans tend to oppose drug-law reform by about a
two-to-one margin. So where does the reform movement stand now? Chastened
but very much alive.

The Ninth Circuit federal appeals court on Oct. 29 sustained an injunction
forbidding the federal government from revoking the controlled-substances
license or even investigating California doctors who recommend marijuana to
their patients. The Ninth Circuit does get reversed more often than other
circuits, but this Supreme Court has been solicitous of First Amendment
rights, on which this ruling was based. The concurring opinion by Judge
Alex Kozinski, stressing the legitimate interests of seriously ill patients
and of states seeking to innovate within a federalist system, was
especially powerful. It should probably be reprinted and distributed widely.

The Drug Enforcement Administration has raided numerous medical marijuana
cooperatives in California and effectively shut them down, apparently
focusing on those that have tried to operate in as above-board and "clean"
a fashion as possible, e.g., Santa Cruz, Oakland, Los Angeles, San Diego.
That has been discouraging, but it has also provoked a negative response.
California Attorney General Bill Lockyer sent a sharply worded letter to
DEA Administrator Asa Hutchinson after the Santa Cruz raid, and a Sept. 23
rally in Sacramento drew a large crowd and symbolic civil disobedience.

While these raids have been debilitating, several -- Santa Cruz, Los
Angeles -- have not been followed by formal charges being filed. It may be
that the feds doubt whether they can get a California jury to convict on
medical marijuana charges -- and since federal judges fairly often don't
allow testimony about medical use or illness to be introduced at trial, any
Californian called to a jury on any federal marijuana case might be
well-advised to assume it's a medical marijuana case and vote to acquit. In
San Diego, the preliminary phases of Steve McWilliams' case will begin in
December. Steve has good legal representation and feels confident.

In Oakland, Ed Rosenthal -- not affiliated with the Oakland cooperative but
accused of growing for San Francisco clubs -- has assembled a good legal
team and isn't planning on jail. Both cases should get extensive local news
coverage and stimulate discussion.

Lynn and Judy Osburn in Ventura County are in worse shape and Orange
County's Marvin Chavez is back in state prison. The battle in the courts is
a mixed affair, and a number of medical marijuana activists will be forced
to pay dearly for their convictions and compassion.

But drug-law reformers, while somewhat bloodied, are not going away. Ethan
Nadelmann hopes they will be able to persuade Democrats, in the process of
reassessing their priorities and licking their wounds, to embrace this
cause. Maybe they will, maybe they won't. But it won't be for lack of
effort by reformers.