MARIJUANA, EVENTUALLY, WILL BE LEGAL

The movie "Saving Grace" is a sweet English comedy about a genteel
widow who grows marijuana to fight off financial ruin. There's a
jovial scene where a starchy doctor, local constable and dowdy garden-
club ladies all get high as kites. Lurking in the background are
humorless government authorities intent on closing down the merriment.

Such conflict may soon be playing at a state legislature near you -- if
it isn't there already. For several years now, states have been
performing rather elaborate fan dances to legalize marijuana without
exposing themselves to charges of being "soft on drugs."

There are a lot of sour faces opposing these efforts. The most
powerful belong to, of all people, officials in the Clinton
administration. Possession or distribution of cannabis sativa remains
a federal felony. The Feds in general are not at all happy about the
growing casual disregard for the evil weed. And there are jobs to
protect in the war against drugs.

The premier form of rebellion on the state level continues to be the
voter initiative. This November, voters in Colorado and Nevada will
have their turn at chipping pieces off the federal drug laws. If the
ballot initiatives pass, these states will join California, Oregon,
Washington, Arizona, Alaska, Maine and Hawaii in allowing doctors to
recommend marijuana for patients with certain illnesses.

(Actually, Nevadans will be voting on the issue for a second time.
State law requires that voter initiatives be approved twice before
going to the legislature. The measure easily passed in 1998.)

Every day, it seems, the fight spills over into some courtroom. Last
month, the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed California's "cannabis clubs,"
which openly distribute marijuana to patients. Then, last week, a
federal judge in San Francisco ruled that federal officials may not
stop California doctors from discussing marijuana's medical benefits or
promoting its therapeutic use.

State legislatures have begun to take the issue over from the more
raucous world of ballot initiatives. In June, Hawaii became the first
state to sanction the use and possession of marijuana for medicinal
purposes through legislation.

What's really going on is a revolution in American thinking about
marijuana specifically and perhaps illicit drugs generally. Attacks on
the marijuana laws tend to highlight causes more noble than expanding
the right to get stoned. You can hardly beat reducing pain and nausea
in cancer patients as an attractive argument for legalizing pot.

And in the name of helping farmers, several states now support the
planting of industrial hemp. This non-euphoric cousin of marijuana can
be made into rope, paper, salad oil and any number of useful products.
Because of its similarity to the stuff that Clinton says he didn't
inhale, industrial hemp is also banned by the federal government.

Maryland recently became the fourth state -- after Hawaii, North Dakota
and Minnesota -- to allow farmers to grow the crop. (Doing so requires
a permit from the federal Drug Enforcement Administration.) The
Illinois Senate has voted to direct the state university to conduct
research on hemp production. Virginia last year called on federal
officials to allow that state to run an experiment in hemp production.

Claims being made on behalf of the plant's virtues are not without
merit. But underlying them is a radical change in public attitudes.
Like the lovable English eccentrics who populate Saving Grace , many
Americans now regard smoking pot as a naughty but essentially harmless
activity. And they think law-enforcement resources could be put to
better use than prosecuting the taxpayer who lights up a joint.

There's one thing everyone should recognize. Once hemp (or marijuana,
weed, pot, call it what you will) becomes widely available, the cat
will be out of the bag.

Doctors can prescribe it for headaches. And although the type of hemp
used by industry contains little of the psychoactive essences treasured
by hippies, it looks an awful lot like its mind-bending cousin. Once
you have fields of waving industrial hemp, it will be virtually
impossible for the law to find sprigs of the wicked stuff tucked
therein.

The road may not be straight, but the direction is pretty obvious. Some
day, the sale and possession of marijuana will be legal from sea to
shining sea.