CLEVELAND BILLIONAIRE BACKS S.C. MARIJUANA MEASURE

A pot-smoking billionaire in Cleveland has bankrolled nearly all the
$32,000 raised for the ballot measure to make marijuana crimes the
lowest priority for Santa Cruz police.

Mega-donor Peter Benjamin Lewis, 71, chairman of the Cleveland-based
Progressive Insurance Corp., is known in political circles as a
leftist who gives millions to liberal causes and anti-war movements
- -- in the same league as his friend, financier George Soros. The two
are the country's biggest contributors to liberal candidates and
causes such as marijuana legalization, gay rights and the environment.

Highest on Lewis' list of political priorities is the effort to
decriminalizing marijuana.

Disclosure forms filed this week by Santa Cruz Citizens for Sensible
Marijuana Policy with the county Elections Department report Lewis
contributing $32,000 to the Santa Cruz ballot measure.

Roughly $1,200 of the Santa Cruz marijuana campaign has come from the
National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws of San Francisco.

None has come from local donors, according to the financial disclosure forms.

"Most of our money may come through another channel, but we are a
grassroots organization," said proponent Andrea Tischler. "It costs a
lot of money to run a campaign and we don't think that will matter to
the voters if the money comes from someplace else."

The measure would force police officers to focus on crimes other than
adult marijuana sales or use on private property, and would not allow
officers to participate in regional marijuana busts.

Some, including City Attorney John Barisone, question the measure's legality.

Lewis strongly favors taxing and regulating the use and sale of the
drug. He was a chief backer in California's 1996 passage of
Proposition 215, the measure that made medical-marijuana use legal.

A bulk of the Ohio man's marijuana-related contributions --
seven-figure yearly donations -- goes to the Marijuana Policy Project
in Washington, D.C.

The nonprofit, established in 1995, doles out Lewis' money to
"grassroots organizations" working around the country to pass local
legislation to legalize marijuana, spokesman Bruce Mirken said.

Lewis' money went through the Policy Project before reaching Santa
Cruz, where it paid for the $20,000 petition drive earlier this year
that yielded almost twice the required 3,400 signatures of registered
city voters to qualify the initiative for the Nov. 7 ballot.

"Peter Lewis is our largest individual donor," Mirken said Thursday.
"He has been involved in supporting marijuana-law reform for a number
of years. The grants program he funds has been in the neighborhood of
$2 million."

Ranked as one of the world's richest people by Forbes magazine, Lewis
was arrested for possession of marijuana in January 2000 while
traveling in New Zealand.

He admitted to three charges of importing drugs and freely
acknowledged to being a regular pot smoker, according to various
media reports, including an article in the Capital Research Center in
Washington, D.C.

Lewis has also been the biggest donor to the Solomon R. Guggenheim
Museum in New York, giving $77 million to the arts institution since 1993.

The Princeton graduate gave a gift of $60 million to the Ivy League
university for the construction of a library in his name, and has
given more than $60 million to Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.

A spokeswoman for Progressive Insurance on Thursday said Lewis was
out of the country and unavailable for comment.