SO MUCH FOR `THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE'

It went almost unnoticed in the larger scheme of things in this election
season. But on Nov. 3, three more states -- Washington, Nevada and Alaska
- -- voted to legalize marijuana for medicinal use. And in two other states
plus the District of Columbia, voters faced down government officials who
questioned the right of citizens to decide this issue for themselves.
Arizona voters found medical marijuana on their ballot in a second
successive election. They had given approval only two years ago (along with
California) to legalize the drug upon a doctor's prescription. So why this
second statewide proposition? It was to bar the state Legislature from
voiding that prior vote.

A similar challenge faced people in Oregon. They resoundingly rejected a
legislative move to restore criminal penalties for possessing marijuana --
even as prescribed to ease suffering.

For District of Columbia residents, who are still wards of the federal
government, the conflict with authority was drawn even more sharply. Under
orders from Congress, District officials were barred from tabulating the
votes in a local referendum empowering physicians to recommend pot smoking
for patients with certain illnesses.

We are all aware of the fear shared by many conservatives -- that marijuana
usage is not only unwise but a first step along the path to perdition. Yet
what ever became of an earlier concern among conservatives? As I recall,
this was to get government off the backs of the American people. The
mantra went like this: On matters like abortion, gun control or school
prayer, faceless bureaucrats and liberal judges think they know better
than the rest of us. The convictions of ordinary folk are disregarded. It
remained for Ronald Reagan, no less, to enshrine that aphorism about
removing government from our backs.

So why can't we let the medical profession prescribe freely to ease the
unpleasantness of illnesses ranging from epilepsy and multiple sclerosis to
several forms of cancer?

Though it finds backing in respectable medical circles, this approach runs
afoul of a national drug enforcement policy that has remained in place
through successive administrations of both parties. The policy persists
despite its demonstrated failure to quell the public appetite for a range
of drugs far more devastating than pot.

A trio of public servants starting with William Bennett have accepted the
oddly un-American designation, "drug czar." These otherwise fine men all
have been longer on rhetoric than on the sort of results expected of czars.
Their only comparison with Ivan the Terrible has been the vast number of
U.S. citizens who continue to jam our prisons -- nearly half of them on
drug-related offenses.

Marijuana as medicine? Our incumbent czar, Barry McCaffrey, has responded
pretty much as we'd expect of a czar -- or as the retired Army general,
which he is, in defense of a discredited battle plan. When voters in
California enacted Proposition 215 two years ago, McCaffrey's reaction was
to threaten federal prosecution of any doctors who might feel emboldened
thereafter to recommend marijuana as a palliative. Although quickly
overruled in court, McCaffrey has persisted in his campaign to keep federal
law supreme. He dismisses clinical evidence that pot smoking in certain
cases could constitute good medicine. His uncertain trumpet continues to be
sounded in the face of favorable reports from a number of professional
sources and an outright endorsement of the drug's efficacy by the New
England Journal of Medicine. Czar McCaffrey laces his public utterances
with dire warnings that even a limited use of marijuana for health purposes
sends the wrong message to the nation's youth. We are left to wonder what
success he attaches to earlier messages that have failed to deter the
spread of pot smoking among school kids as early as the elementary level.

Numerous lesser officials have fallen in line. In moving to close a Bay
Area center where marijuana was being dispensed as medicine, state Attorney
General Dan Lungren may have earned credit with conservatives, but it
obviously made no points in his failed campaign for governor. The arrogance
of state officials out West was topped only by the congressional action
against D.C. residents. Exit polling disclosed that possibly 80 percent of
them had voted in support of medical marijuana. But their views on this may
remain an official secret. Why? On motion of Rep. Bob Barr, R-Ga., a
member of the House Judiciary subcommittee on crime, Congress had inserted
a proviso in its catchall pre-election appropriations bill asserting that
no funds therein could be expended "to carry out any ballot initiative that
would legalize drugs or reduce penalties for drug use, possession or sale."
A word to the wise. The D.C. Board of Elections & Ethics ordered that votes
on the marijuana proposition be set aside, uncounted.

Last time anything like this was visited on Congressman Barr's Atlanta-area
populace, it was by Northern carpetbaggers swarming in behind Gen. Sherman.
The bottom line: Doctors today are free to prescribe highly addictive
morphine, but not a milder drug that conservatives appear to fear most.
And never mind what a majority of Americans say every time the issue is
put to a vote.

Get government off our backs? Ha.