MARIJUANA INITIATIVE IS A CRUCIAL MATTER

The ultimate praise of Nevada - the incomparable state in which adults
enjoy the freedom to drink, gamble and have sex like the great hedonists of
ancient cultures - is that its constitution permits adults to be just that:
adults.

With its permissive framework, Nevada deems adults - that is, grown men and
women who, despite their various levels of maturity, have reached the age
of accountability - as capable of handling certain freedoms that other
states prohibit.

And so it is unsurprising that advocates from the Committee to Regulate and
Control Marijuana group, a child of the Marijuana Policy Project, strove to
make Nevada the first state in which adults could possess the hemp plant
free from the fear of persecution.

The story of the marijuana initiative, which is narrated in the Features
section in this issue of The Rebel Yell, presents several critical issues
of political, historical and literary value.

We allotted the marijuana topic such inordinate space in this RY edition
with absolute consciousness; for we believe that no topic more germane or
imminent has risen from Nevada soil this year.

The marijuana initiative is a crucial matter for a variety of reasons -
none of which have to do with smoking pot.

First and foremost: Underscoring the text of the marijuana initiative is
the principle of responsibility. If America deems its grown men and women
capable of the responsibility required to drive cars, own guns and eat
immoderately - as it should; and if Nevada deems its grown men and women
capable of the responsibility required to gamble and buy sexual consent -
as it should; then grown men and women must be allowed to smoke marijuana
in the privacy of their own homes.

Another reason is the harvest of money the state would reap from tax
revenues if it regulated the manufacture and distribution of marijuana. In
a study conducted at UNLV in October of 2002, just before the original
effort to legalize marijuana in Nevada was devitalized in the November
election, researchers found that the state of Nevada would make $28.6
million a year in tax revenues if it were to regulate marijuana. In a time
when the fiscal pool of one of our state's most fruitful programs, the
Millennium Scholarship, is desiccating, $28.6 million a year would be the
redemptive downpour we need.

Furthermore, a Nevadan doesn't need to have any inclination toward
marijuana to appreciate the indomitable fight the CRCM and MPP have put up
over the past two years.

The groups deserve commendation, not because they battled for an initiative
but because they refused to give up on a belief they deemed pure and
inviolable.

We neither condone nor condemn an adult's use of marijuana, just as we
remain neutral in regard to alcohol and tobacco. For there is no doubt that
vices - whether they are called joints, beer, cigarettes or Big Macs - are
pernicious to the health of the public, especially when consumed
immoderately, but no one - not us, not university officials and certainly
not the government - owns the right to prohibit individuals from
endangering themselves. That is his or her choice.

Unfortunately, the marijuana initiative was cut down on Wednesday. Our only
hope is that those unconquerable supporters of the initiative will continue
the good fight in Nevada.