POLL: MELLOW OUT ON POT

Little Rock, AR -- More than 60 percent of Arkansas voters support
reduced penalties for marijuana offenses, according to poll results
released Monday

The poll, commissioned by Drug Policy Education Group Inc., a
Fayetteville-based non-profit that promotes reforming the state's
marijuana laws, and conducted by Zogby International of Utica New
York, found that 61 percent of respondents support reducing penalties
for marijuana convictions

Thirty-six percent said they "strongly" support the reductions and
another 25 percent said they "somewhat" support reducing the penalties.

Thirteen percent said they somewhat oppose reducing the penalties and
22 percent said they would strongly oppose such a proposal.

The survey of 418 voters was conducted on Election Day as they left
polling places and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9
percentage points.

Denele Campbell, executive director of the group, said Monday that
the results are similar to a referendum passed by Eureka Springs
residents on Nov. 7.

In that election, Eureka Springs voters passed by 63 percent to 37
percent an initiative that instructs local law enforcement officials
to consider marijuana offenses their lowest priority.

Campbell said she did not know whether her organization would push
for changes to the state1s drug laws during the 2007 legislative session.

"It's a little bit early for us to say," said Campbell, who is also
executive director of the Alliance for Medical Marijuana.

In 2004, the alliance tried but failed to gather enough signatures to
place a proposed initiated act to legalize marijuana for medical use
on the general election ballot that year.

Campbell said other polls done in the past few years in Arkansas show
support for reforming marijuana laws.

In 2001, the Arkansas Poll, conducted by the University of Arkansas
Department of Political Science, found 66 percent of Arkansans
supported legal medical use of marijuana. In 2002, a Zogby poll of
Arkansas voters found 63 percent supported a change in the law
allowing for legal medical use of marijuana.

State Rep. Lindsley Smith, D-Fayetteville, said last year that she
supports legalizing marijuana for medical purposes. She also said she
was considering legislation for the 2007 regular session that would
create a registration program to allow terminally ill people to use,
grow and distribute among themselves marijuana for medical use
without the threat of being arrested or going to prison.

Smith was not in her office Monday and did not return messages left
at her office and home seeking comment.