TRADITIONAL MARRIAGE, MEDICAL MARIJUANA INITIATIVES SUPPORTED

When it came to ballot propositions, the biggest national news last Tuesday
was opposition to government recognition of same-sex marriages. But support
for medical use of marijuana and the rights of gun owners suggest a certain
stubborn respect for individual rights persists even as voters considered
issues like same-sex marriage and abortion important. Voters in all 11
states that had propositions on the ballot defining marriage as between a
man and a woman passed them. In Georgia and Ohio, the propositions also
included denial of benefits to domestic partners or civil unions. For
better or worse, most Americans seem to oppose samesex marriages just now.
At the same time, although elected politicians of both parties are still
reluctant even to discuss the issue, solid majorities of Americans favor
allowing the medical use of marijuana when it is presented to them on a
ballot, a trend that holds across party lines. In Montana, which went for
Bush 59-38 and approved a ban on same-sex marriages, voters approved a
medical marijuana measure, Initiative 148, by a 62-38 margin. Simple math
suggests that some Bush supporters and gay marriage opponents also support
medical marijuana.

Voters in Oakland, Columbia, Mo., and Ann Arbor, Mich., passed local
medical marijuana initiatives. Voters in Massachusetts approved 12 of 12
local advisory referenda on marijuana law reform - five favoring medical
marijuana, six for making marijuana possession a civil offense similar to a
traffic ticket, and one for taxing and regulating marijuana. In Vermont,
where the state legislature passed a medical marijuana law earlier this
year, three leading opponents of reform were swept out of office, while two
supporters whose re-election prospects had seemed in jeopardy won
re-election handily.

These results should challenge the conventional wisdom that looking
favorably on any kind of drug law reform is a ticket to oblivion for an
elected politician. To the contrary, opposing medical marijuana now seems
more likely to presage electoral defeat - although the number of cases so
far may be too small to call this a sea of change.

In Arizona, Proposition 200, which would bar illegal immigrants from
getting public services, passed handily. In Georgia, a measure to require
that a parent or guardian be notified before a minor can get an abortion
passed. Measures to limit attorney's fees and damages in medical
malpractice cases passed in Nevada and Florida. Measures to extend term
limits generally failed. Measures to increase taxes (except on tobacco or
"the rich") generally failed.

Voter support for government limited to a few essential functions is seldom
as strong as we would like to see it. But it persists, and politicians
would do well not to ignore it completely.