MEASURE GAMBLES ON MARIJUANA

LAS VEGAS -- For 30 years, the campaign to legalize marijuana in America has
gone nowhere. A few states have approved it for medical purposes. A few have
removed criminal penalties for possessing small quantities. But no state has
said, in effect, get high at your own risk.

Now comes anything-goes Nevada, where prostitution is legal in some places,
gambling fuels the economy and voters are among the nation's most
independent-minded.

After gaining a state-record 110,000 signatures, backers won a place on the
November ballot for a measure that would legalize possession of up to 3
ounces of marijuana. If it passes this year and again in 2004, the state's
constitution will be amended, preventing politicians from circumventing the
voters' will.

Marijuana would be legally smoked in private, but public use would remain
illegal. Despite warnings from Washington that legal pot conflicts with
federal law, a recent poll shows Nevada voters evenly split.

Marijuana-related measures will appear on four other ballots this year:
Arizona, Ohio, Michigan and the District of Columbia. This continues a trend
that has evolved slowly since 1973, when Oregon became the first state to
decriminalize possession.

Despite changing attitudes on illegal drugs and an electorate increasingly
dominated by voters born during and after the baby boom, there's no
consensus among demographers and social scientists that more states will
follow Nevada. "It wouldn't surprise me if Nevada pioneers legalization,"
says Robert Lang, director of Virginia Tech's Metropolitan Institute. "But
you can't bet on the baby boom being monolithic. There are a lot of baby
boomers who rejected the '60s."

Surveys show that about one-third of American adults o 80 million o have
smoked marijuana, but Lang notes that many came of age during the "Just Say
No" 1980s, when marijuana use declined.

Baby boomers are more liberal on social issues than previous generations,
even as they age, says William Frey, a demographer at the Milken Institute
in Santa Monica, Calif. "But it works two ways," he says. "They also see
themselves more in the role of parents and guardians than they do as free
spirits."

Experts agree that Americans are moving away from the idea that drug use is
a law enforcement problem and see it more as a health issue. Two of the
November measures, in Ohio and Michigan, would give convicted drug users the
option of treatment instead of jail. Californians approved a similar
initiative in 2000.

Proponents of the Nevada initiative are selling it partly on the basis of
the impact marijuana cases have on the criminal justice system.

On Aug. 6, the Nevada Conference of Police and Sheriffs endorsed the
measure. Andy Anderson, then the president of the group representing more
than 3,000 street cops, argued that officers spend time on marijuana
possession cases that could be better spent investigating violent crimes.

"Some cops were upset with me," he says. "But there's a silent majority out
there that agreed with our position. We weren't advocating the smoking of
marijuana. All I'm saying is, let's not waste time arresting people for it
when it's never going to be prosecuted and people really don't care."

A Zogby poll in December found that 61% of Americans say police shouldn't
spend time dealing with minor marijuana offenses.

The boost from the police group caused a sensation. But some of the state's
sheriffs, police chiefs and district attorneys pressured Anderson to resign,
and the group reversed its position. "We don't believe the initiative is a
good thing for the public and certainly not a good thing for law
enforcement," says Detective David Kallas, executive director of the union
that represents Las Vegas police.

The measure's backers still claimed a victory. "The consensus had been that
law enforcement was solidly opposed," says Billy Rogers, head of Nevadans
for Responsible Law Enforcement, the initiative's sponsor. "We certainly
dispelled that notion."

Rogers, on leave from the Washington, D.C.-based Marijuana Policy Project,
which advocates legalization, says Nevada was targeted because last year it
became the first state in more than a decade to decriminalize marijuana.
Possession of less than an ounce is a misdemeanor carrying a $650 fine.
Before that, Nevada had the nation's toughest law o possession of a single
marijuana cigarette was a felony. Nevada voters also approved a medical
marijuana constitutional amendment by wide margins: 59% in 1998 and 65% in
2000.

Since this year's measure qualified for the ballot, Asa Hutchinson and John
Walters, heads of the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Office of
National Drug Control Policy, have visited to warn that legalizing pot would
turn Nevada into a drug tourist spot.

"You're going to have a much more permissive environment," Hutchinson says.
"People will be coming from other states to visit their relatives so they
can use marijuana."

Walters says that if the Nevada measure wins approval, he doubts the
government will enforce federal law's flat ban on marijuana possession.

Pot laws in many other Western nations are far more permissive. Great
Britain recently decriminalized possession of small amounts. Canada is
considering the same policy. Spain and Italy have sharply lowered penalties
for marijuana use. In other countries, the drug remains illegal, but
prosecutions are few.

There's some sentiment in Congress for loosening marijuana laws. Though it's
not expected to pass, a House bill, supported by more than two dozen members
from both parties, would permit states to approve medical use of marijuana
without risk of federal intervention.

Backers of the Nevada measure to legalize up to 3 ounces are confident,
although Rogers says he's not sure his group can afford TV time. It has
raised about $150,000. The state's largest newspaper, the Las Vegas
Review-Journal, came on board, arguing that legalization "would end the
needless harassment of individuals who peacefully and privately use
marijuana."

Even so, demographer Frey says, "it's going to be a long time before this
trend moves into the heartland o maybe the coastal states, the big metro
areas, where the more urbane baby boomers live."

Sidebar:

Nevada ballot issue. Nevadans will vote in November on a far-reaching
initiative on marijuana. Key provisions:
- - Possession of up to 3 ounces would be legal.
- - Public use and driving under the influence would remain illegal.
- - Adults 21 and older could buy it.
- - People selling marijuana to those younger than 21 could face a prison
sentence.
- - The state would license sellers and collect taxes from sales. The
Legislature would decide how sellers would obtain marijuana. Unlicensed
sellers could be prosecuted.
- - Bringing marijuana in from out of state would be illegal.
- - The state would set up a system for low-cost distribution of medicinal
marijuana.
Source: State of Nevada