CHANGES IN DRUG POLICY AND GUN LAWS ARE PICKED

BOSTON, - Among the winners: drug policy reform, gun control,
all-English education. Among the losers: school vouchers, gay rights,
sprawl containment.

Such were the general outlines emerging today from votes on more than
200 state ballot initiatives around the country.

The initiatives addressed some of the knottier social issues facing
the country, like doctor-assisted suicide - which was narrowly voted
down in Maine - and universal health care coverage, which was also
narrowly defeated, in Massachusetts.

Changes in state drug laws were approved in five states. California
approved, by 3 to 2, a measure requiring people convicted of drug
possession or use to get treatment rather than going to jail. The
proposition calls for $120 million a year to be spent on treatment for
the 36,000 people expected to qualify, but its supporters say it will
save more than that in prison costs.

A measure in Massachusetts that would also have allowed some minor
drug dealers to avoid jail was narrowly defeated after law enforcement
officials warned that it was too easy on dealers. And in Alaska,
voters overwhelmingly rejected a measure that would have made their
state by far the most liberal in the nation when it came to marijuana.
It would have legalized the use of marijuana for people age 18 and
over, and granted retroactive amnesty to people who had been convicted
of marijuana crimes in the past.

But those defeats were the exception on drug policy: In Nevada and
Colorado, voters approved initiatives legalizing the medical use of
marijuana, bringing the total of states with such laws to eight.

In addition, voters in Mendocino County in Northern California
approved, 58 percent to 42 percent, a measure that would allow a
resident to cultivate up to 25 marijuana plants and directing sheriffs
to make the arrest of small-scale growers their lowest priority. The
initiative does not overrule state and federal laws, so it is largely
symbolic, but it does mark a first in local marijuana measures, which
have previously focused mainly on decriminalizing possession.

Colorado and Oregon easily passed ballot initiatives to require
background checks of buyers even at gun shows, where federal law does
not require such investigations. They passed despite heavy spending by
gun advocates and amounted to a popular rebuke to legislatures that
had rejected such measures.

In Colorado, where the massacre at Columbine High School left 15 dead
last year, the measure passed 70 percent to 30 percent, spurred on in
part by the parent of a Columbine victim. And in Oregon, where 15-
year-old Kipland P. Kinkel went on a shooting rampage in 1998, killing
his parents and two others, it passed 61 to 39 percent.

Arizona voters passed an initiative that would replace bilingual
education with one-year immersion classes meant to bring pupils up to
speed in English. The measure was backed by a businessman who
supported a similar measure in California two years ago, with similar
success.

School voucher advocates had no such success. In California, a Silicon
Valley venture capitalist, Timothy Draper, spent millions pushing for
a measure giving a $4,000 voucher to every schoolchild, but voters
rejected it by a margin of 71 percent to 29 percent. A proposition in
Michigan, which would have given vouchers worth about $3,300 only to
pupils in bad school districts, went down to defeat by a margin of 69
percent to 31 percent.

Votes against gay rights in three states might not have been as bad a
sign for their supporters as they looked, some advocates say.

In Maine, voters narrowly defeated a measure that would have made it
illegal to discriminate against gays and lesbians in housing,
employment and other spheres. Maine's legislature had passed such an
anti-discrimination measure in 1997, but it was then narrowly repealed
in a special referendum vote in 1998. This latest ballot initiative
had been a chance for Mainers to rethink that repeal, but apparently
too few people changed their minds.

Tony Giampetruzzi, the spokesman for advocates of the
anti-discrimination measure, said the campaign had been hurt by
shortfalls in fund-raising but also because "this time they had that
little extra bit of ammunition regarding Vermont."

Vermont's decision this year to legalize marriagelike civil unions for
gay couples also changed the context for two measures directly
concerning gay marriage: the measures barring the recognition of gay
marriage passed in both Nebraska and Nevada by the same margin, 70
percent to 30 percent.

But in a narrow victory for gay rights, Oregon voters apparently
rejected a measure that would have banned any teaching in public
schools that sanctioned homosexuality. According to unofficial
returns, it went down 51 percent to 49 percent.

As for sprawl, proposals to require growth management plans for many
communities each received support from only 30 percent of voters in
Colorado and Arizona. Opponents had warned that caps on urban growth
could mean limits on economic growth in general.

"We still consider the election a victory," said Elise Jones, a
spokeswoman for the anti-sprawl campaign in Colorado. "We
fundamentally changed the debate on growth in Colorado forever."