trend to be discerned from the 1998 elections

Journalist and author Richard Reeves, when I talked to him in the
early 1980s on a book-flogging tour, expressed fascination that the
mainstream media - presumably the people closest to important events -
during his lifetime had missed most of the significant political
trends until they were already well-established - from the beginning
of the civil rights movement to the rise of Goldwaterism to opposition
to the Vietnam was to the late-1970s tax rebellion. I suspect they
have also missed the most significant trend to be discerned from the
1998 elections.

Amid fruitless speculation on whether the midterm elections were a
referendum on Clinton, a slap to insufficiently conservative and
hapless Republicans or a new life for a previously dispirited
Democratic Party, the talking heads on election night usually found a
stray second or two to note that medical marijuana initiatives had
passed in several states. It was generally treated as a mildly amusing
resurgence of aging hippiesm, chalked up as an inexplicable anomaly
before the experts moved on to more comfortable material like the
meager distinctions between the two major parties.

Yet the results just might portend a seismic shift in the way American
voters think about drug policy. On Election Day 1998 every single
ballot measure that promised some kind of reform in our draconian and
ineffective drug laws - from limited medical use of marijuana to
decriminalization of personal, recreational marijuana use to an end to
jail time for simple possession of even "hard" drugs - passed, and
passed by comfortable margins.

These results came in the face of vehement and scornful opposition
from almost every establishment entity imaginable, form the official
federal drug warriors (often using tax money to try to influence the
elections) to an over-whelming majority of elected officials of both
major parties to three former U.S. presidents. Nor was this s
"stealth" campaign for a single initiative sneaked onto the ballot in
a single state. Voters in places as diverse as Arizona, Oregon and the
District of Columbia voted for whatever reform initiative was place
before them.

In Minnesota, Jesse Ventura, who had made a point of criticizing the
ineffectiveness of the drug war without actually calling for
legalization, won a stunning victory. In California, Dan Lungren, who
had carefully positioned himself as the staunchest of drug warriors,
was defeated soundly. None of the members of Congress who had voted
against a House resolution (clearly designed to influence voting on
medical marijuana initiatives) - declaring that medical marijuana was
a dangerous figment of wishful thinking - paid for their audacity at
the ballot box. Libertarian Republican Ron Paul of Texas, who has
called for a complete end to the drug war, won by a comfortable 55
percent.

This election showed that when it comes to the drug war, the American
people no longer trust their government or the two major parties. It
also displayed a commendable distrust of official "safety" agencies
like the Food and Drug Administration (Arizona voters, traditionally
among the most conservative in the country, rejected a legislative
softening of an initiative they had passed two years before that would
have postponed medicalization of marijuana until the FDA approved it).
And on a separate initiative, Arizona voters affirmed that they don't
want incarceration to be an option for first and second offenses for
simple possession of any drug.

To be sure, no initiative called for outright legalization off drugs.
But the voters, in the face of the usual alarmist rhetoric about how
any softening of the drug laws in the name of compassion would lead to
chaos (and congressional refusal even to count the votes in
Washington, D.C.), voted for every single reform measure. In short,
the only clear message to emerge from the 1998 election was one of
respect for freedom and personal dignity, of confidence in the
judgment of individuals and their doctors over the mandates of the
state.

All the media missed it. The drug warriors may have gotten part of the
message and responded with a stern admonition that the federal drug
laws are still in place and the uppity people - states representing 20
percent of the population now have voted for some kind of
medical-marijuana initiative - better not get too entranced by
subversive ideas about states' rights or individual choice.

Accordingly, I have a couple of suggestions for initiatives to be
placed on the ballots in other states two years hence, as they
certainly will be. Those initiatives should contain two additional
provisions:

One, the state's congressional delegation should be instructed - not
just recommended or any such evasion - to introduce and support a law
removing marijuana from Schedule I (reserved by law for drugs with
unique dangers of abuse and no known medical value, which means
keeping it there is already against federal law) at the federal level
so it can be prescribed by doctors.

Second, the attorney general of the state in question should be
instructed - or commanded, or whatever legal language is most
mandatory - to mount a legal challenge to the constitutionality of the
federal drug laws. A constitutional amendment was required to prohibit
beverage alcohol at the national level because everyone then
understood that the national government under the U.S. Constitution
didn't have the authority to do it. Why isn't an amendment required to
give the national government the power to prohibit certain other
drugs? Without such an amendment, where did the feds get the authority?

That would certainly make things interesting if, by then, we have
survived the Y2K crisis.

Checked-by: derek rea