STATES' RIGHTS ISN'T JUST FOR REACTIONARIES

THE Supreme Court decision Tuesday barring distribution of medical
marijuana in California is a reminder to the political left that the
federal government - specifically, the judiciary - is no automatic
ally.

The political right, of course, has long seen the feds as a foe. So now
maybe both ends of the spectrum will see that the real enemy is a one-
size-fits-all approach to national governance.

"This is about more than just marijuana," Dennis Peron, a Bay Area-
based medical marijuana activist, told the Los Angeles Times yesterday.
"It's about the Supreme Court interfering with states' rights." Whoa.
"States' rights?" That's a blast from the past. In 1948, South
Carolina's Strom Thurmond ran for president as a States' Rights
Democrat, denying that the federal government had any ground to
interfere with de jure segregation in Dixie. With such precedents in
mind, it's little wonder that when most Americans hear "states'
rights," they hear code words for reaction.

But that's not the whole story. One can insist on minimum national
standards for, say, civil rights, and still see the value of the 50
states prototyping different methods of problem-solving. David Osborne,
the godfather of the "reinventing government" movement, set the tone
for a revival of state-by-state experimentation in his 1990 book,
"Laboratories of Democracy: A New Breed of Governor Creates Models for
National Growth." Osborne highlighted the economic-development efforts
of such up-and-comers as then-Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton. It was
Clinton himself who argued, during the 1992 campaign, that new ideas,
from outside the Beltway, were needed to overcome the "braindead
gridlock" of the capital.

In the '90s, the states have enacted new approaches to issues all
across the political spectrum, from term limits to gay and lesbian
civil unions, from tax cuts to spending increases, from school choice
to school uniforms, from gun control to "concealed carry" gun permits,
from campaign finance reform to voting by mail or even Internet.

And the diverse beat goes on. At a time when many Americans, especially
along the Mexican border, are worried about too many immigrants, Iowa,
worried about having too few people, is calling itself an "immigration
enterprise zone." The landlocked Hawkeye State now wants to be the
Ellis Island of the prairie.

It may seem ironic that Clinton-the first product of the Swinging
Sixties to sit in the Oval Office, the erstwhile try-new-things
governor-now backs national drug czar Barry McCaffrey as he seeks to
squelch California's new approach to the drug issue. Four years ago,
Golden State voters enacted Proposition 215, the Compassionate Use Act,
authorizing nonprofit groups to distribute marijuana to doctor-
certified medical patients.

Yet McCaffrey & Co. view such "cannabis clubs" as the thin edge of the
wedge, as a tactic used by legalization advocates to bring marijuana
into the mainstream. And at the federal Department of Justice's urging,
the Supreme Court agreed, voting 7-1-including Clinton appointee Ruth
Bader Ginsberg in the majority-to shut down medical marijuana
distribution.

Coincidentally, as the Supreme Court issued its ruling, Clinton was on
his way to Colombia, where the federal government is about to spend an
additional $1.3 billion on an increasingly quagmirish drug war. And
when President I-Didn't-Inhale comes home, he'll be walking free-as the
prisons bulge with 2 million inmates, the bulk of them there for drug-
related offenses.

No doubt most Americans support Clinton's drug efforts. But not all do.
And that's where the question of states' rights comes in. Should
California have the option of going in a different direction from the
rest of the nation on drug policy? Is the national interest really
served by imposing a toughest-common-denominator policy on the entire
country? Today, Utah, with less than 2 million people, has more
influence on national drug policy than California, with 30 million
people. Why? Because Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, a drug hawk, chairs the
Judiciary Committee, through which every federal judge must be
confirmed.

But it doesn't have to be this way. It's possible to imagine a
decentralized system in which the states would be free, or at least
freer, to go their own way on all manner of social policy, to the left,
to the right, or to wherever. Call it "states' rights," call it
"federalism," or call it, simply, "diversity." By any name, it would
smell sweet, because the real word for it is "freedom."