ANTI-WAR MOVEMENT - DRUG LAWS ARE A REASON TO RUN FOR LOCAL CANDIDATES

Steve McWilliams' campaign message is simple: "End the war on drugs and
divert that money to helping people."

A longtime advocate for medical marijuana, McWilliams is on the March 7
primary ballot as a candidate for San Diego City Council from the 3rd
District.

Does he expect to win? No.

But McWilliams said he is morally obliged to run and raise "people's
awareness that the drug war is creating a narco-terrorist police state,
destroying our social fabric and severely infringing on the freedom of
individuals and families."

"If we took the money being spent on the drug war and put it into schools
and into grants so low-income families can buy homes and afford college
tuition," said McWilliams, "we would be far better off as a society."

McWilliams is founder of Shelter from the Storm, an organization dedicated
to growing marijuana for people with cancer, AIDS, glaucoma, chronic pain
and other disabilities covered by Proposition 215, California's
medical-marijuana initiative.

Despite being on probation for a 1998 cultivation charge, McWilliams has
permission from authorities to grow the marijuana he uses daily for relief
of chronic pain resulting from a motorcycle accident.

But he remains an outspoken critic of San Diego and California officials
for failing to implement medical-marijuana guidelines more than three years
after the passage of Proposition 215.

Daniel Beeman, another council candidate from the 3rd District advocating
the immediate and full implementation of Prop. 215, said he not only does
not use drugs or alcohol, he doesn't even drink coffee.

"But why not let people have a choice?" said Beeman. "We need to move
society beyond arresting people and find ways to assist people who want to
get off drugs. Government needs to stay out of the business of all adults."

Joining McWilliams and Beeman in that criticism is the Libertarian Party,
which has candidates running in San Diego for state Assembly, Congress,
City Council and mayor.

Dennis Triglia, Libertarian candidate in the 78th Assembly District,
characterized the war on drugs as "ridiculous," but stopped short of
calling for outright legalization now.

"I'm taking a more cautious approach. Society is not going to make a change
of this magnitude overnight," said Triglia, a research scientist at a local
bio-tech company whose companion uses marijuana to cope with side effects
of his AIDS medicine.

"I'll settle for decriminalizing drugs, and we can start by not locking
people up for growing and using medical marijuana. These people aren't
ruthless drug dealers, they are sick and simply trying to use medicine that
is legal in California.

"The government has no right to say what we can put in our bodies. The real
menace is not drugs," Triglia concluded, "it's the drug war which does
nothing but lead to more crime, especially in low-income neighborhoods."