ANTI-POT FIGHT COMES TO FAIRBANKS

Local Fairbanks leaders and the nation's deputy drug czar came
together in a Thursday morning press conference to lambast the ballot
proposal to legalize marijuana.

Scott Burns, the deputy director of the White House Office of National
Drug Control Policy, and the other attendees argued that legal
marijuana would harm Alaska's youth and businesses and dampen the
Department of Defense's desire to post troops in the state.

"Being the first in the country to do this could have all kinds of
repercussions," Burns said.

Ballot Measure 2 would make it legal for people 21 and older to grow,
use, sell or give away marijuana, which could be taxed and regulated
by the state. It's on the Nov. 2 state ballot.

Burns was joined at the conference by representatives of law
enforcement agencies, including Fairbanks Police Director Paul Harris
and Harvey L. Goehring, Alaska's top federal Drug Enforcement
Administration agent; and local officials, including Fairbanks City
Mayor Steve Thompson and Fairbanks North Star Borough Assembly members
Bonnie Williams and Garry Hutchison. Margaret Russell, chair of the
Fairbanks Chamber of Commerce board of directors, also spoke at the
event, held in the Fairbanks City Council chambers.

Burns argued that passage of the measure would contribute to a trend
of kids trying marijuana at younger and younger ages, calling smoking
pot a "middle-school rite of passage."

Burns also stressed that much of the money being used to tout the
initiative came from the Washington D.C.-based Marijuana Policy
Project, a group he argued wants to make it the first step toward
legalizing further drugs. And he also argued that the U.S. military
might look less fondly on Alaska if it had legal marijuana. Tim
Hinterberger, an associate professor for the University of Alaska
Anchorage's biomedical program and a sponsor of Ballot Measure 2
dismissed that argument as a "scare tactic."

Hinterberger defended the MPP as only interested in marijuana, and
noted that Burns is an out-of-stater as well. Hinterberger also argued
that Burns was making his point for him when he pointed out how many
youths use tobacco. The solution, he argued, is to regulate marijuana
rather than spending money to prohibit it.

"What we're doing now, we're saying, is not working," he said. "So how
about trying something different?"

Other speakers on Thursday argued against the initiative for a number
of reasons, such as its potential to cause businesses and tourists to
shy away from Alaska. Harris argued the public good entailed in banned
marijuana trumps the right to privacy cited by initiative backers.

"This is not a privacy issue; it is a public safety, it is a public
health issue," he said.

Burns is on a two-stop tour of Alaska that was meant to focus on
several issues until the ballot initiative jumped to the fore. "This
topic has kind of taken over as the emerging theme of this trip."

Thompson said he plans to introduce a resolution in opposition to the
ballot measure in the Fairbanks City Council, while Williams said she
and others have one in the works for the borough assembly as well. The
borough school board has also discussed one, while the Chamber of
Commerce has passed one already.

Russell said the chamber has also raised about $4,000 from local
businesses to contribute to the effort to fight the measure.