WEED WATCH: IT'S ELECTION SEASON AGAIN

It's election season again, and, in the world of drug-law reform, that
can mean only one thing: Time for federal narcos at the White House
Office of National Drug Control Policy - home to the nation's "drug
czar," John Walters - and their buddies in the Drug Enforcement
Administration to get busy spending your hard-earned tax dollars - and
using their official titles, offices, and government e-mail addresses
- - to get out on the campaign trail in an attempt to thwart
citizen-driven - and thus, also taxpayer-supported - ballot
initiatives that seek to reform marijuana-related laws. Revising his
2002 role as drugs-are-scary stump speaker extraordinaire, czar
Walters headed back to Nevada last week to campaign against an
ambitious ballot measure that would legalize possession of and tax and
regulate sale of marijuana to adults. This is the second time the
initiative has been on the ballot (it failed in 2002) and thus the
second time Walters has jetted to the Silver State to try to quash the
measure. Walters was roundly criticized for his actions last time,
which state-initiative supporters at the Marijuana Policy Project
argued were not only a violation of Nevada state election law, but
also a violation of the 1939 Hatch Act, the federal law regulating the
political activities of government officials. In the end, Walters
didn't even get a knuckle rapping for his actions, and now, he's
baaaack, swooping into Reno to offer a doomsday vision of a world
where pot is taxed and regulated.

The czar's boldness here is a little surprising, given that his office
- - and his leadership of it - have come under increasing scrutiny in
recent months. Last week the federal Government Accountability Office
released its latest assessment of the ONDCP's youth anti-drug media
campaign - you know, the folks who brought you the whole
this-is-your-brain-on-drugs crap and the pot-smokers-support-Osama
ads. The GAO pointed out that the anti-drug commercials simply don't
work and suggested cutting the office's $1.2 billion budget until the
"ONDCP is able to provide credible evidence of the effectiveness of
exposure to the campaign on youth drug-use outcomes," or, the GAO
suggested, until the office can "provide other credible options for a
media campaign approach." Already, legislators were increasingly wary
of Walters' stewardship; in April, according to The Des Moines
Register, Republican Sen. Charles Grassley called on President George
W. Bush to give Walters the boot because of his insistence on spending
time (and, thus, money) campaigning against pot and not enough time
working on more insidious problems, like, say, the manufacture and use
of methamphetamine.

But Walters forges on, undaunted. His trip to Reno was arranged,
ostensibly, to hand off federal funds earmarked for fighting drug
couriers in northern Nevada, says Neal Levine, campaign manager for
the drug-reform initiative known as Question 7. But Levine says
Walters made plenty of time to attack the tax-and-regulate
proposition, saying that regardless of whether Q7 passes, the "feds
won't let this happen," and even going so far as to give out the Web
address for the campaign against the proposition (ironically dubbed
the Committee to Keep Nevada Respectable).

Meanwhile, in Colorado the DEA has been stepping up its efforts to
defeat a statewide ballot initiative that would legalize possession of
small amounts of marijuana by adults. The proposal was brought by
reform advocates Safer Alternative for Enjoyable Recreation, the group
behind a series of successful initiatives that aim to "equalize"
penalties associated with pot and with booze - including initiatives
in the city of Denver and at several state universities, among them
UT-Austin.

SAFER successfully collected enough voter signatures to place the
so-called Equalization Initiative on the November ballot - a move that
has clearly miffed the DEA, whose employees are apparently using their
official titles and offices to organize a fairly well-funded
opposition group. The Boulder Daily Camera broke the news last week,
after receiving a copy of an e-mail penned by local DEA Agent Michael
Moore - using his Department of Justice e-mail address
(michael.w.moore@usdoj.gov) - to local political campaign
professionals, seeking to hire a campaign manager. "Colorado's
Marijuana Information Committee is looking to employ a campaign
manager to defeat a proposed ballot initiative that would legalize the
possession of up to 1 oz. of marijuana for adults 21 years and older,"
Moore wrote in his Aug. 8 e-mail. "Campaign manager must be able to
start immediately and have experience managing statewide campaigns.
Committee has $10K to launch campaign and hire manager." Interested
candidates, Moore writes, should contact him at his DEA office. SAFER
Director Mason Tvert quickly cried foul, arguing (as Q7 supporters
have as well) that the DEA's efforts are out-of-line, against Colorado
state election law, and possibly in violation of the Hatch Act. In
part, equalization supporters want to know, who is providing the
$10,000 Moore touted in his e-mail? Denver DEA Special Agent in Charge
Jeff Sweetin told the Boulder daily that the money has come from
"private donations," and there is nothing illegal about Moore's
activities. "The American taxpayer does have a right to have the
people they've paid to become experts in this business" - presumably
the federal narcos, though how their experience with arresting drug
users qualifies them as drug-policy experts remains a mystery - "tell
them what this [proposition] is going to do," he said. Taxpayers
"should benefit from this expertise" - insight that "Weed Watch"
presumes would sound eerily similar to czar Walters' gloom-and-doom,
sky-is-falling prohibitionist nonsense.