DECRIMINALIZE POT? ARK. TOWN TO DECIDE

Having an Ounce or Less Would Be Akin to a Traffic Violation

EUREKA SPRINGS, Ark. Here in the heart of the Bible Belt, where local
laws often restrict the sale of liquor, grassroots campaigns to
decriminalize marijuana have gone nowhere.

But to the surprise of enthusiasts across the state, residents in the
small tourist town of Eureka Springs will vote Nov. 7 on whether to
make misdemeanor marijuana arrests the city's lowest law-enforcement priority.

Local leaders of the National Organization for the Reform of
Marijuana Laws, the group that collected the signatures needed to get
the initiative on the ballot, hardly can believe their day has come.

Volunteers had circulated petitions for years, but "it's been like
talking to a brick wall," said Glen Schwarz, NORML's Little Rock
director. "The jails in Arkansas are full of pot smokers caught by
people who think they've arrested Al Capone. ... Maybe this will
crack open the door."

The Eureka Springs initiative seeks to make possession of an ounce or
less of marijuana akin to a minor traffic violation, punishable by
community service or drug counseling. First-time offenders caught
with an ounce or less of marijuana in Arkansas can get as much as one
year in jail, a $1,000 fine, or both.

But no one is lighting up in celebration yet at least not in public.
Many locals are unhappy about the initiative while Arkansas is
battling a major methamphetamine problem. And Eureka Springs police
say the vote won't matter because state laws governing marijuana
possession trump local ordinances.

"A lot of people here don't see anything wrong with marijuana, but
it's against the law to possess it in Arkansas. Until they change the
state law, we're going to uphold it," Police Sgt. Shelley Summers said,

Keith Stroup, who founded NORML in 1970, said that although police
can "ignore the will of the voters, I'm not sure they will want to."

If the initiative passes, he said, "a majority of residents will be
saying that law-enforcement resources should be spent on more serious
crime. If the mayor and other city leaders don't understand that, the
town can vote in people who do."

Ryan Denham, a volunteer who is organizing the Eureka Springs
campaign, said he would think about that later. Right now, he is
focusing on the election, getting together mailers that will be sent
to every voter in the town.

"We barely have legal alcohol in Arkansas. But if any place here has
a shot, it's Eureka," he said.

In a remote hollow in the northwest Arkansas hills, Eureka Springs
has been called the most eccentric town in the state, the largest
open-air asylum in the country, a place where misfits fit.

The population of 2,278 is a mix of conservative Christians and aging
hippies who, as they tell it, wandered into the area around 1973 and
never left.

A seven-story statue of Jesus Christ overlooks the quaint Victorian
village where senior citizens on bus tours shop for crafts and
T-shirts - and where gays and lesbians celebrating one of the town's
many "diversity weekends" walk arm in arm on the narrow, winding streets.

Because the town is a hodgepodge of people and opinions, no one
really knows how the vote will turn out. There are plenty of people
like Doug Green, 47, who shrugged and said: "Pot isn't a big deal
here. It just isn't. I don't think that law will change anything or
make people smoke more. It's what goes on here all the time anyway."

Bill Hunter pulled a copy of Medicinal Plants and Herbs from the cab
of his pickup truck, and thumbed through the pages until he found a
section on the beneficial properties of cannabis.

"Here, this is it," he said, placing a stubby finger on the passage.
"People should read this. It's all right here. ... There's a big meth
problem in Arkansas. That's what the police should be spending their
time and money on, not marijuana.

But, said Jim Evans, methamphetamine abuse is exactly why drug laws
should not be relaxed.

"I don't see how it can do anything but hurt our chances of ever
getting the drug problem under control," he said of the initiative.
"This seems to be going backward, not forward. When I heard about
this initiative, I just shook my head and said 'Oh, why us?'"

Grocery-store butcher Ronnie Henderson, 42, said he knew why.

"There's a lot of hippies in this town," he said, tending to a
brisket-filled barbecue pit in the store parking lot. "They got it on
the ballot, and all of the sudden we're voting on whether to make it
easier on people who use drugs. To me that's like saying you're not
going to arrest people for drunk driving.

"It's the law, and you don't just change it like that. If it passes,
this town won't be a family tourist place anymore."