THE NEW POLITICS OF POT

When advocates of medical marijuana couldn't make headway with policy
makers, they took their campaign directly to the voters.

Standing in the foyer of a hotel in Washington, D.C., Bill Zimmerman
looks a bit uncomfortable talking with a reporter who is sporting a
long, gray beard, wearing a lime green shirt and representing a
publication called High Times. Both men are attending a conference
sponsored by the National Organization for Reform of Marijuana Laws, a
group that for many years has pushed for a broad overhaul of national
laws governing cannabis. But amid the festival-like
atmosphere--"reefer music" blares, vendors hawk products made from
hemp, and activists carry guitar cases and pamphlets that tout the
benefits of recreational marijuana use--the smartly dressed Zimmerman,
with a copy of the New York Times tucked under his arm, seems out of
place.

Indeed, some members of NORML were overheard condemning him and the
speech that he delivered on the opening day of their annual meeting
last November. It's not that they question his credentials: Zimmerman
holds a doctorate in neuroscience, runs a California political
consulting group and recently published a book entitled "Is Marijuana
the Right Medicine for You?" Rather, they are critical of the
mainstream tactics he has used in recent successful efforts to
legalize marijuana for medicinal use in half a dozen states.

Although his strategy has been focused on getting voter referendums
passed in individual states, Zimmerman's ultimate goal is to have the
federal Drug Enforcement Administration change marijuana from a
Schedule I substance (meaning it has no accepted medical use in the
United States and is highly addictive) to Schedule III status (on a
par with Tylenol with codeine).

Zimmerman's approach does not mollify more radical activists, however.
Nor does his personal belief that the drug should be decriminalized. A
significant segment of NORML thinks that Zimmerman and Americans for
Medical Rights, his Santa Monica-based organization that spearheaded
the 1996 initiative allowing certain patients to smoke marijuana for
medical purposes in California and Arizona, have betrayed the cannabis
movement. They demand removal of all penalties for the private
possession of marijuana by adults.

For his part, Zimmerman refuses to criticize NORML and its supporters,
although his silence when asked about them is telling.

The differences between the two groups go a long way toward explaining
why the marijuana debate has reappeared on the political radar screen
after a decades-long hiatus. Americans for Medical Rights has been
remarkably effective at portraying the medical use of marijuana as an
issue of compassion, rather than of potheads and addiction. The group
made its mark with the two victories in 1996 and then struck gold this
past November, winning votes in Alaska, Nevada, Oregon, Washington and
again in Arizona, where the state legislature forced voters to
validate their 1996 decision on medical marijuana. Polls indicated
similar propositions would have been approved in Colorado, where the
secretary of state invalidated the ballot initiative, and the District
of Columbia, where Congress refused to appropriate money to certify
the results.

How did Zimmerman and Americans for Medical Rights successfully alter
the political landscape on which the medical marijuana issue rests?
For starters, they ran the campaign like a campaign. Zimmerman brought
a wealth of experience managing political races. He helped one member
of Congress win reelection in 1998 and has steered several other
ballot initiatives to victory this decade. He also introduced
time-tested polling tactics to the marijuana measures and, most
important, Americans for Medical Rights attempted to appeal to
mainstream voters, for whom NORML's agenda of sweeping reform and
eventual legalization is taboo.

And while some marijuana advocates spent time debating among
themselves whether hemp oil can reduce cholesterol levels, Americans
for Medical Rights booked doctors on television and radio programs to
discuss how those suffering from glaucoma, chemotherapy-related nausea
or AIDS "wasting" syndrome can benefit from pot. They talked at length
about research and cited a favorable editorial that appeared in the
New England Journal of Medicine. "It was understood," Zimmerman says,
"that this would be a professional campaign."

Dr. Rob Killian is a family practitioner and the leader of Washington
Citizens for Medical Rights, which successfully pushed the state's
Initiative 692. "More of us are seeing it work," he says of medicinal
marijuana. And to him, it seems clear that the messenger is just as
important as the message. "We're using spokespeople who are
mainstream," Killian says of the effort in Washington, where he told
supporters to stop wearing tie-dye and listening to reefer music in
public. He laments, however, that "there are some activists who refuse
to play the game in a winning way."

Equally significant is the manner in which Americans for Medical
Rights and the state organizations associated with them--Killian's
group as well as Oregonians for Medical Rights, Coloradoans for
Medical Rights and so on--have recast the marijuana issue in terms of
the patient's needs. As a result, many hospice workers and nurses, as
well as AIDS and cancer-patient advocacy groups, have lent their support.

"Dying and suffering patients should not be arrested for using
marijuana as a medicine under their doctor's supervision," says Dr.
Richard Bayer, who practices internal medicine in Portland, Oregon,
and was the chief petitioner of the state's successful Initiative 67.

He was heard by voters across the state advocating the usefulness of
marijuana in helping patients deal with pain, fight nausea and help
improve their appetite. Apparently, Oregonians responded to his plea
to have compassion for those who are very ill.

Despite these recent developments, opponents of legalization
efforts--most notably federal and state policy makers and the law
enforcement community--remain firm in their belief that the medical
marijuana movement is just a smoke screen. General Barry McCaffrey,
the White House's drug czar, maintained that proponents in California
and Arizona in 1996 were trying to take a step toward full
legalization. "This is not medicine," he declared. "This is a Cheech
and Chong show."

Law enforcement officers contend that allowing people to use marijuana
could lead to the use of harder drugs as well as make pot more
accessible to youngsters. In addition, they are critical of the
"loose" wording of these ballot initiatives, arguing that the language
about possession and distribution is far too ambiguous. Multnomah
County Sheriff Dan Noelle, who led the campaign against medicinal
marijuana in Oregon, is convinced the public is being hoodwinked.
"This is a national effort with the primary funders working on an
agenda to legalize," he says.

In fact, "medical rights" groups across the country have been
bankrolled, essentially, by three men: billionaire international
financier George Soros, insurance magnate Peter Lewis and John
Sperling, who founded the for-profit University of Phoenix. All of
them have stated publicly that American drug laws make no sense, that
governments should focus on treatment more than punishment and that
marijuana should be decriminalized.

Rhetoric aside, Noelle's observation that the campaign is coordinated
and national in nature is certainly accurate. Although local activists
played a role in the marijuana victories in each state, groups such as
Oregonians for Medical Rights have led the charge--and acknowledged
that they receive some 95 percent of their funding from the national
Americans for Medical Rights. "It's no secret that this is a
multi-state effort," says Amy Klare, a campaign coordinator for
Oregonians for Medical Rights.

University of Southern California Law Professor Charles H. Whitebread,
the author of several works detailing the history of marijuana laws,
is surprised at the results. But then Americans for Medical Rights, he
notes, did something heretofore unheard of. "They demystified this
drug and got rid of the notion of reefer madness."

Many people insist, however, that more research on smoked marijuana
must be conducted before doctors should be able to prescribe it. While
government health officials are hesitant to approve studies, a key
report by the National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine will
be released soon. For the time being, the influential American Medical
Association has come out against the marijuana initiatives.
"Referendums and legislation are not the right way to make scientific
decisions," says an AMA spokesman. "Its efficacy should be established
through well-controlled clinical trials."

The marijuana lobby responds that cannabis is one of the most studied
drugs in history. George Washington University Law Professor Peter H.
Meyers, a former NORML attorney who teaches a class on drugs and the
law, says, "Perhaps we know more about marijuana than any other drug."

In advocates' minds, the overwhelming opposition boils down to
politics. They point to the example of a DEA administrative judge who,
in 1988, said a brief filed by NORML calling for a change to Schedule
II (narcotic, stimulant and depressant drugs) had merit. "Marijuana,
in its natural form, is one of the safest therapeutically active
substances known to man," the judge wrote. But the DEA officially
rejected the opinion. "The only reason they didn't allow medical use
of the drug," asserts Meyers, "is for purely political reasons."

Clearly, the DEA and Congress are not about to change their current
opinion on the matter anytime soon. In fact, the House passed a
resolution opposing medicinal marijuana in 1998. So Zimmerman is
counting on votes in 2000 in Colorado, Maine and Nevada (where state
law requires voters to pass an initiative twice before it can be
enacted) to further pressure the federal government and state
legislatures. Referendums are also possible in Michigan, Ohio and
Massachusetts.

Zimmerman is adamant that his group's only goal is to allow patients
to smoke marijuana as a medicine. Whether or not that could lead to a
slippery slope of use and abuse remains an open question, but it is
hard to dispute the effectiveness of his tactics so far. "The fact
that they have bitten off a small little piece," says USC's
Whitebread, "and treated it like a political campaign is the reason it
is successful."