MARIJUANA GROUP JOINS CANCER SOCIETY TO APPEAL PETITION'S DENIAL

The Marijuana Policy Project Monday joined the American Cancer Society in
asking the Nevada Secretary of State's Office to reverse its denial of its
initiative petition.

Citing what they described as "numerous errors" in the Nevada Attorney
General's Opinion saying they needed up to 30,000 more signatures to
qualify, initiative backers requested that Secretary of State Dean Heller
transmit the petition to legalize small amounts of marijuana to the 2005
Legislature.

Spokesman Bruce Mirken said they and "Smoke-Free Kids," organizers of the
anti-smoking petition caught by the same attorney general's opinion, are
also planning a state lawsuit and a federal lawsuit over the ruling.

The groups collected signatures on their petitions for several months and
submitted them to Heller's office Nov. 9. But a month after they submitted
the petitions, the Attorney General's Office issued an opinion saying they
needed 83,156 valid signatures to qualify instead of the 51,337 signatures
they had been told were the minimum throughout the petition campaign.

The basis of the ruling was a requirement that petitions gather signatures
totaling 10 percent of the turnout in the "last general election." The
51,337 total is 10 percent of the November 2002 turnout but - at the
request of overloaded county election officials - the petitions weren't
turned in until after the November 2004 elections and 10 percent of that
turnout is 83,156 signatures. Attorney General Brian Sandoval ruled "last
general election" means just that, and the petition organizers must meet
the higher requirement.

Heller rejected the petitions as failed, saying he had no choice.

"We are hoping Secretary Heller will recognize that his previous action
changes the rules after the game has ended, violates our right to due
process and simply doesn't pass the straight-face test," said Neal Levine,
of the Marijuana Policy Project. "But if he won't play fair, we fully
expect to win in federal court."

The marijuana petition asks the Legislature to legalize possession of small
amounts of marijuana among other changes to the law.

Bob Crowell, who filed the same request last week on behalf of the Cancer
Society, also said it was unfair to change the rules after the petitions
had been turned in.