GROUP WORKS ON INITIATIVES FOR LEGAL POT

State Is Looking At 2 Proposals

Missouri voters could decide whether the state
will be the first to legalize marijuana in all
its forms if organizers of a petition drive can
collect the necessary signatures over the next 10 months.

A group calling itself Show-Me Cannabis, led in
part by some of the principal proponents of
Columbia's lenient city marijuana law, turned in
two proposals Wednesday to Secretary of State
Robin Carnahan's office. Her office will decide
whether it is ready to circulate and, if so,
write the summary that will appear on the ballot.

The two measures are essentially identical. One
would amend state law, and the other would put
the legalization language into the Missouri
Constitution. Both would legalize marijuana use
for medical purposes, allow adults to consume
marijuana under restrictions similar to those
placed on alcohol and allow users to grow small plots of pot.

Farmers would be allowed to grow hemp, which is
defined as marijuana without large amounts of the psychoactive substance
THC.

Repealing the criminal laws governing marijuana
would make Missouri safer, said Amber Langston,
campaign director for Show-Me Cannabis. Frankly,
we would like our society to be safer, and having
this market in the hands of criminals doesn't make anybody safer,=94 she
said.

Langston was campaign manager for the successful
2004 city ordinance that called for marijuana
possession cases to go to municipal rather than
state court and eliminated jail sentences for
violations. Dan Viets, a Columbia attorney and
Missouri state coordinator for the National
Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, is chairman of the campaign.

Legalization would save money for state and local
governments by eliminating prosecution and add to
state coffers through taxes, Viets said. =93Our
highest priority is to stop putting people in
jail and putting people in prison for marijuana use,=94 he said.

Show-Me Cannabis must gather as many as 100,000
signatures to put a statutory change on the
ballot. They must gather as many as 160,000
signatures to ask voters to change the
constitution. No decision has been made on which
will be circulated for signatures.

If successful =AD signatures must be in by May 6 =AD
convincing voters would be the next task. Some of
the most vigorous opposition is likely to come
from law enforcement. The Missouri Association of
Prosecuting Attorneys' board of directors will
meet next week, and the issue is likely to be
discussed in depth, said Mike Fusselman, Randolph
County prosecutor and past president of the association.

I think it is awfully difficult to take marijuana
and place it in the same position as alcohol,=94 Fusselman said.

Criminal sanctions are the incentive for users to
seek treatment to change their behavior, he said,
and few people are in prison for marijuana who
have not had several chances to avoid
incarceration. The reality is that most
prosecutors give these people every chance to
deal with their problems,=94 Fusselman said.