MARIJUANA MEASURES PASS HANDILY

Columbia voters did a dramatic about-face on marijuana yesterday,
approving two measures that forbid police from arresting people for
possessing small amounts of the drug.

Two ballot measures, which mirror a similar measure that failed
10,461-7,629 in April 2003, easily passed during yesterday's voting
deluge.

Proposition 1, which allows seriously ill adults to use marijuana with
permission from their physicians, passed with 32,945, or 69 percent,
of the votes, compared with 14,541 votes against. Proposition 2, which
limits all small-quantity marijuana arrests to a maximum $250 fine in
municipal court with no criminal record, passed with 61 percent of the
vote, 28,723-18,544.

"I have some cases in court tomorrow where this could apply," said Dan
Viets, a Columbia lawyer and member of Columbia Alliance for Patients
and Education, or CAPE, which obtained the 2,275 valid signatures
needed to place the issue on yesterday's ballot.

Viets spoke at about 10 p.m., with about 60 percent of the vote in, to
CAPE members gathered at The Old Heidelberg last night.

The measures deal with possession of up to 1 ounces of marijuana
and call on city prosecutors to direct offenders to drug education
classes or community service rather than issue fines.

Promoters of the propositions pushed to place the issues on
yesterday's ballot because of the heavy voter turnout general
elections bring. Earlier marijuana votes occurred during off-season
elections. In addition to the April 2003 measure, a similar proposal
lost in 1985 by 828 votes - 57 percent to 43 percent.

Last night, Viets expressed surprise that both measures passed by such
wide margins. But the political landscape differed dramatically from
earlier elections. In spring 2003, both the federal government and the
federally funded Missouri Association of Community Task Forces lined
up to attack the proposition, which would have eased marijuana laws in
a similar fashion to Proposition 1 and Proposition 2.

CAPE, meanwhile, attracted $50,000 in donations from the Washington,
D.C.-based Marijuana Policy Project and used the money to advertise
the two propositions.

Also, drives to encourage people to vote attracted voters who helped
pass the initiatives, said Amanda Broz, treasurer of CAPE. She said
the issue attracted several crossover Republicans who voted for
Bush-Cheney on the presidential ticket.

"It's an issue of privacy rights," Broz said. "A person should be able
to put into their body what they want to, as long as it doesn't harm
somebody else."

Columbia Police Chief Randy Boehm spoke against the ballot
initiatives, saying their passage would send a signal that it's OK to
smoke marijuana, but he didn't actively campaign against the measure.

"I'm disappointed, but our job is to enforce the law as it is," Boehm
said. "The community has spoken, so that's what we're going to do.
I've spoken to both the city law department and the prosecuting
attorney, and there will be a meeting in the next few days regarding
how the misdemeanor marijuana cases will be handled."

A precinct-by-precinct review shows nearly a complete reversal of the
community's position on marijuana. In April 2003, the marijuana
proposition lost in 29 of 44 Columbia precincts; it was soundly
defeated in every precinct in the Second and Fifth wards.

This year, the medical marijuana proposition won in every precinct,
and Proposition 2 lost by narrow margins in only eight precincts. Both
measures gained strong support in the Third Ward at Memorial Baptist
Church on Paris Road, where the April 2003 measure narrowly won.