LEGALIZE IT: SEVEN STATES CAMPAIGN FOR MARIJUANA

A pro-marijuana group based in Washington, D.C., is looking for
activists in seven states, including New Hampshire and Maine, 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 also is targeting Arizona,
Delaware, Idaho, Montana and Oregon.

The effort is in its infancy, and 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 the same kind of 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
a job listing on the Internet.

Tactics could include organizing demonstrations, lobbying state
lawmakers, building a coalition of supportive organizations and
generating favorable news 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 (Ariz.)
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, Oechslin said. Arizona voters approved a
ballot initiative in 1996 that gave doctors authority to prescribe
marijuana to seriously ill patients.