WEED WATCH: CZAR STUMPS TO SAVE OREGON

As the election draws ever closer, federal drug czar John Walters is
kicking it into high gear, taking his drugs-are-the-devil stump
speeches to Oregon in an attempt to squash the state's second medical
marijuana-related ballot measure, which seeks to augment the medi-pot
law passed there in 1998. Walters' stumping was successful in Nevada
in 2002, where the czar preached against a voter decriminalization
initiative -- while skirting Silver State election law, which requires
the filing of campaign expenditure reports.

This year's Oregon ballot measure asks voters to decide whether to
create state-run marijuana dispensaries, increase legal medi-pot
possession to 1 lb. and 10 plants per patient, and to add nurse
practitioners and naturopathic physicians to the medi-pot law
definition of "attending medical personnel" who can qualify medi-mari
patients. The provisions of the so-called Oregon Medical Marijuana Act
II would add to provisions already passed into law by voters in 1998.
Not surprisingly, Walters isn't jiggy with the idea. On Sept. 10, he
swung into action during an interview with the Associated Press,
spinning his usual overstated rhetoric and claiming that passage of
OMMA2 would make Oregon a "safe haven for drug trafficking," the Drug
Reform Coordination Network reports.

Indeed, Walters trotted out the feds' favorite proclamation that the
whole notion of medical marijuana is nothing more than a sham, telling
the AP that the Oregon proposition is tantamount to a voter fraud,
perpetrated by dastardly drug reformers. "People are being played for
suckers," he said. "Their compassion for sick people is being used to
do something that's destructive for the state."

Activist John Sajo of Voter Power, the group sponsoring OMMA2, told
the DRCNet that opponents are wrong. "Our opponents don't have any
good arguments against medical marijuana, so they call this a
legalization measure," he said. "That is nonsense."

In other marijuana-related news, NORML reports that Chicago Mayor
Richard M. Daley has given his approval to a plan to decriminalize
possession of small amounts of marijuana within the Windy City. The
decrim proposal, which would make possession of up to 30 grams of pot
punishable by a fine not to exceed $1,000, was floated by a Chicago
police sergeant who estimated that the measure would generate nearly
$5 million per year in city revenue.

Currently, 12 states have decriminalized dope possession -- including
Alaska, where possession of up to four ounces is legal.

Daley said that enforcing criminal penalties for minor pot possession
is a burden on city taxpayers, which wastes police time and resources
- -- NORML reports that charges are eventually dismissed in a majority
of the approximately 15,000 possession arrests made in Chicago each
year.