A TEST OF WILLS OVER DRUG LEGISLATION

It was called Proposition 200 and it seemed straight-forward enough when it
appeared on Arizona ballots in the fall of 1996. Backed by a well-financed
grass-roots organization that called itself Arizonans for Drug Policy
Reform, it proposed allowing doctors to prescribe marijuana and other
illegal drugs for medical use by grievously ill and dying patients.

Voters approved it.

The Arizona Legislature, one of the most conservative in the country and in
no mood to have the Grand Canyon State in the forefront of the much-debated
national push to legalize illegal drugs for medical use, saw the proposition
as a legislative end run by a special interest group that had considerably
more in mind than just compassion for the sick. Legislative leaders said
that while marijuana was the drug most talked about for medical use by
Proposition 200's proponents, the measure, if allowed to stand as written,
would also permit doctors to prescribe other illegal drugs like heroin, LSD
and PCP.

The legislature then amended the measure, as Arizona law permits, adding a
rider that said Arizona doctors could not, under any circumstances,
prescribe a drug not on the Federal Government's list of approved drugs.
That amendment effectively gutted the measure.

But the fight did not end there.

Arizonans for Drug Policy Reform, having renamed itself The People Have
Spoken, now has another drug proposal for voters to consider. Labeled
Proposition 300 and scheduled to be on this fall's election ballot, it would
restore Proposition 200 to its original form and instruct the legislature
not to modify it again.

The People Have Spoken group has drawn much of its support from George
Soros, the international investor who also is active in a number of
contentious social causes, including efforts to legalize illegal drugs for
medical purposes. Another of the group's major supporters is John Sperling,
president of the Apollo Group, an organization that runs nonprofit
universities, including the University of Phoenix.

Fighting back, state lawmakers are making sure that this time around, the
official ballot description of the proposition is worded so voters will
understand that they are deciding not whether to legalize not only the use
of marijuana for medical purposes but also many other illegal drugs, some
much more potent and dangerous.

Two weeks ago, The People Have Spoken asked a judge to throw out the
lawmakers' description of the measure, arguing that it was unfair for the
legislature to be in a fight in which it alone wrote the rules of
engagement. The court refused and the pamphlets now are being readied for
statewide distribution.

Besides Arizona, there have been major fights over drug legalization in
California and Washington State, among others.

Checked-by: Rolf Ernst