POT FIGHT ON BALLOT? THAT'S THEIR PLAN

Medical Marijuana Supporters Want Voters to Decide

Medical marijuana supporters, who finally pushed legislation onto the
governor's desk in Minnesota only to see the bill vetoed, are
preparing for an even bigger task next year: ensuring the right of
the sick and dying to smoke marijuana by writing it into the state's
constitution.

Bypassing Gov. Tim Pawlenty and putting the question straight to
voters is no easy chore. Supporters of last year's Clean Water, Land
and Legacy Amendment spent nearly $4 million to get the measure
passed. Yet, medical marijuana backers say they're willing to foot the bill.

But the key question for the 2010 election might not be whether
voters approve the measure -- polls show medical marijuana has
consistent support in Minnesota -- but how the issue affects other
races, including what is expected to be a hard-fought gubernatorial campaign.

"There's definitely a second layer any time you think about a
constitutional amendment or a ballot question," said Mike Zipko, a
political consultant at St. Paul's Goff & Howard. "You could see how
someone from a progressive point of view (could use the issue) to
push voter turnout even a couple of points."

The Senate had already approved versions of the bill, which
originally would have let patients suffering from a list of illnesses
get a state-issued identification card allowing them to buy marijuana
at licensed dispensaries or to grow their own.

This session, the bill made it out of the House for the first time by
a 70-64 vote. It was narrowed dramatically to affect only terminally
ill patients and won a handful of Republican votes. But several
Democrats voted against it, and it split St. Paul's all-DFL delegation.

Pawlenty quickly vetoed it. "While I am very sympathetic to those
dealing with end of life illnesses and accompanying pain, I stand
with law enforcement in opposition to this legislation," he wrote in
his veto letter.

The chief sponsors of the bill issued a late-night news release
promising a constitutional showdown.

"For the governor to veto this legislation, even after the House
narrowed it so much that thousands of suffering patients would have
been without protection, is just unbelievably cruel," said Sen. Steve
Murphy, DFL-Red Wing.

The issue is by no means assured of landing on next year's ballot;
the Legislature has often been reluctant to put questions directly to
voters. And once they get there, the campaign, which includes
assuring a majority cast ballots in the affirmative (a non-vote
counts as a "no") can be expensive.

"The price of running a statewide campaign has just skyrocketed,"
said Charlie Poster, the former spokesman of Vote YES Minnesota,
which supported the Legacy Amendment.

But the Marijuana Policy Project, a national group pushing the
legislation, appears to have the money to launch a serious campaign.
Since 2005, the group has spent nearly $900,000 lobbying the
Minnesota Legislature with money raised at events like its recent
fourth annual Playboy Mansion fundraiser.

"While nobody's drawn up a budget yet, our basic approach is we would
spend what's needed," said Bruce Mirken, a spokesman for the group.

That sets up an interesting scenario. In 2004, a number of state
constitutional amendments to ban gay marriage were credited with
helping President George W. Bush win re-election by drawing social
conservatives to the polls. Could medical marijuana be the left's
version, drawing voters who aren't typically motivated to vote?

Zipko said it might, pointing to Jesse Ventura's gubernatorial
victory in 1998. Many voters turned out to support a constitutional
amendment guaranteeing the right to hunt and fish, added a vote for
Ventura and left the polls, Zipko said.

"Everybody's looking for any kind of edge to get people to come out
because these elections are getting closer and closer," Zipko said.

Yet when California voters approved the nation's first statewide
medical marijuana law in 1996, a presidential election year, fewer
people turned out than in 1992, the previous presidential election.
And when Oregon voters followed suit in 1998, a gubernatorial
election year, voter turnout there was also down over the previous
governor's race.

Larry Jacobs, the Walter F. and Joan Mondale Chair for Political
Studies at the Humphrey Institute for Public Affairs, is among the
skeptics. He said the Legacy Amendment was passed through a broad
coalition and posed a question that was fundamental to the Minnesota
way of life.

"My sense is (medical marijuana doesn't have) the kind of intense
commitment and breadth of commitment that you see with the Legacy
Amendment," Jacobs said.