MOMENTUM BUILDS FOR BROAD DEBATE ON LEGALIZING POT

The savage drug war in Mexico. Crumbling state budgets. Weariness with
current drug policy. The election of a president who said, "Yes - I
inhaled."

These developments and others are kindling unprecedented optimism
among the many Americans who want to see marijuana legalized.

Doing so, they contend to an ever-more-receptive audience, could
weaken the Mexican cartels now profiting from U.S. pot sales, save
billions in law enforcement costs, and generate billions more in tax
revenue from one of the nation's biggest cash crops.

Said a veteran of the movement, Ethan Nadelmann of the
Drug Policy Alliance: "This is the first time I feel
like the wind is at my back and not in my face."

Foes of legalization argue that already-rampant pot use by adolescents
would worsen if adults could smoke at will.

Even the most hopeful marijuana activists doubt nationwide
decriminalization is imminent, but they see the debate evolving
dramatically and anticipate fast-paced change on the state level.

Some examples:

- -Numerous prominent political leaders, including California Gov.
Arnold Schwarzenegger and former Mexican presidents, have suggested it
is time for open debate on legalization.

- -Lawmakers in at least three states are considering joining the 13
states that have legalized pot for medical purposes. Massachusetts
voters last fall decided to decriminalize possession of an ounce or
less of pot; there are now a dozen states that have taken such steps.

- -In Congress, Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, and Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va.,
are among several lawmakers contending that marijuana
decriminalization should be studied in re-examining what they deem to
be failed U.S. drug policy. "Nothing should be off the table," Webb
said.

- -National polls show close to half of American adults are now open to
legalizing pot - a constituency encompassing today's college students
and the 60-something baby boomers who popularized the drug in their
own youth. In California last month, a statewide Field Poll for the
first time found 56 percent of voters supporting legalization.

A new tone on drug reform also has sounded more frequently in
Congress.

At a House hearing last month, Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., challenged
FBI Director Robert Mueller when Mueller spoke of parents losing their
lives to drugs.

"Name me a couple of parents who have lost their lives to marijuana,"
Cohen said.

"Can't," Mueller replied.

"Exactly. You can't, because that hasn't happened," Cohen said. "Is
there some time we're going to see that we ought to prioritize meth,
crack, cocaine and heroin, and deal with the drugs that the American
culture is really being affected by?"

Gil Kerlikowske, chief of the Office of National Drug Control Policy,
has not endorsed the idea of an all-options review of drug policy, but
he has suggested scrapping the "war on drugs" label and placing more
emphasis on treatment and prevention. Nonetheless, many opponents of
pot legalization remain firm in their convictions.

"We're opposed to legalization or decriminalization of marijuana. We
think it's the wrong message to send our youth," said Russell Laine,
police chief in Algonquin, Ill., and president of the International
Association of Chiefs of Police.

Marijuana - though considered one of the least harmful illegal drugs -
consumes a vast amount of time and money on the part of law
enforcement, accounting for more than 40 percent of drug arrests
nationally even though relatively few pot-only offenders go to prison.

According to estimates by Harvard University economist Jeffrey Miron,
legalization of marijuana could save the country at least $7.7 billion
in law enforcement costs and generate more than $6 billion in revenue
if it were taxed like cigarettes and alcohol.