PRO-MARIJUANA GROUP SEEKS TO LEGALIZE DRUG

MESA, Ariz. -- A Washington, D.C.-based pro-marijuana group is seeking
activists in seven states to build grass-roots support for legalized
marijuana, with the eventual goal being to get the drug legalized for
all adults. The nonprofit Marijuana Policy Project is targeting:
Arizona, Delaware, Idaho, Maine, Montana, New Hampshire and Oregon.

Project officials emphasize they have no master plan for the seven
states.

Instead, the group is looking for local activists whose efforts would
be funded by the project's grant program. The eventual goal is to put
marijuana in the same category as alcohol, with similar taxes and regulation.

A request for proposals has been issued in the seven states, where
grant applicants are asked to list "escalating tactics that would lead
to a change in state law in three to five years via the state
Legislature or the statewide ballot initiative process," according to
an online job listing.

Tactics could include organizing rallies, lobbying state lawmakers,
building a coalition of supportive organizations and generating
favorable coverage.

"It's about providing funding and providing organization," said Krissy
Oechslin, a spokeswoman for the project. "We'd like to bring it off
the street and regulate it."

Barnett Lotstein, a special assistant in the Maricopa County
Attorney's Office, said the effort would go much further than previous
Arizona medical marijuana initiatives, but it's not surprising.

"The objective was, once you get people to think of drugs as medicine,
the next step is legalization," he said. "The ultimate goal of people
who propose the legalization of marijuana is the legalization of all
drugs."

The project has targeted Arizona because of support residents have
shown for medical marijuana, said Oechslin.

Voters here approved a ballot initiative in 1996 that gave doctors
authority to prescribe marijuana to seriously ill patients.

Public support continued in 1998, when voters defeated a referendum
sent to the ballot by state lawmakers, who wanted the Food and Drug
Administration to approve marijuana before Arizona doctors could
prescribe it.

But voters also rejected a 2002 ballot measure aimed at fixing
problems in the 1996 initiative.