SUPPORT FOR LEGALIZING MARIJUANA GROWS RAPIDLY AROUND U.S.

Approval for Medical Use Expands Alongside Criticism of Prohibition

The same day they rejected a gay marriage ballot measure, residents
of Maine voted overwhelmingly to allow the sale of medical marijuana
over the counter at state-licensed dispensaries.

Later in the month, the American Medical Association reversed a
longtime position and urged the federal government to remove
marijuana from Schedule One of the Controlled Substances Act, which
equates it with heroin and cocaine.

A few days later, advocates for easing marijuana laws left their
biannual strategy conference with plans to press ahead on all fronts
- -- state law, ballot measures, and court -- in a movement that for
the first time in decades appeared to be gaining ground.

"This issue is breaking out in a remarkably rapid way now," said
Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance.
"Public opinion is changing very, very rapidly."

The shift is widely described as generational. A Gallup poll in
October found 44 percent of Americans favor full legalization of
marijuana -- a rise of 13 points since 2000. Gallup said that if
public support continues growing at a rate of 1 to 2 percent per
year, "the majority of Americans could favor legalization of the drug
in as little as four years."

A 53 percent majority already does so in the West, according to the
survey. The finding heartens advocates collecting signatures to put
the question of legalization before California voters in a 2010 initiative.

At last week's International Drug Reform Conference, activists gamed
specific proposals for taxing and regulating pot along the lines of
cigarettes and alcohol, as a bill pending in the California
Legislature would do. The measure is not expected to pass, but in
urging its serious debate, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) gave
credence to a potential revenue source that the state's tax chief
said could raise $1.3 billion in the recession, which advocates
describe as a boon.

There were also tips on lobbying state legislatures, where measures
decriminalizing possession of small amounts have passed in 14 states.
Activists predict half of states will have laws allowing possession
for medical purposes in the near future.

Interest in medical marijuana and easing other marijuana laws picked
up markedly about 18 months ago, but advocates say the biggest surge
came with the election of Barack Obama, the third straight president
to acknowledge having smoked marijuana, and the first to regard it
with anything like nonchalance.

"As a kid, I inhaled," Barack Obama famously said on the campaign.
"That was the whole point."

In office, Obama made good on a promise to halt federal prosecutions
of medical marijuana use where permitted by state law. That has
recalibrated the federal attitude, which had been consistently
hostile to marijuana since the early 1970s, when President Richard
Nixon cast aside the recommendations of a presidential commission
arguing against lumping pot with hard drugs.

Allen St. Pierre, the executive director of the National Organization
for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, said he was astonished recently to
be invited to contribute thoughts to the Office of National Drug
Control Policy. Obama's drug czar, Gil Kerlikowske, was police chief
in Seattle, where voters officially made enforcement of marijuana
laws the lowest priority.

"I've been thrown out of the ONDCP many times," St. Pierre said.
"Never invited to actually participate."

Anti-drug advocates counter with surveys showing high school students
nationwide already are more likely to smoke marijuana than tobacco --
and that the five states with the highest rate of adolescent pot use
permit medical marijuana.

"We are in the prevention business," said Arthur Dean, chairman of
the Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America. "Kids are getting the
message tobacco's harmful, and they're not getting the message marijuana is."

In Los Angeles, city officials are dealing with elements of public
backlash after more than 1,000 medical marijuana dispensaries opened,
some employing in-house physicians to dispense legal permission to
virtually all comers. The boom town atmosphere brought complaints
from some neighbors, but little of the crime associated with
underground drug-dealing.

Advocates cite the latter as evidence that, as with alcohol, violence
associated with the marijuana trade flows from its prohibition.

"Seriously," said Bruce Merkin, communications director for the
Marijuana Policy Project, an advocacy group based in the District,
"there is a reason you don't have Mexican beer cartels planting
fields of hops in the California forests."

But the controversy over the dispensaries also has put pressure on
advocates who specifically champion access for ailing patients, not
just those who champion easing marijuana laws.

"I don't want to say we keep arm's length from the other groups. You
end up with all of us in the same room," said Joe Elford, counsel for
Americans for Safe Access, which has led the court battle for medical
marijuana and is squaring off with the Los Angeles City Council.
"It's a very broad-based movement."