PUTTING MARIJUANA ON THE BALLOT: A HOMERIC QUEST

I'm afraid this could be held against me

"Call me Bob Brown or something," a 22-year-old senior Hotel Management
major at UNLV said, after countless students refused to admit to using
marijuana on record. "It's not that I'm ashamed to tell anyone that I smoke
it - because I'm not; even my own mother knows I do - it's just that I'm
afraid this could be held against me.

"The way things are now, smoking marijuana makes me a deviant."

Under current federal laws, marijuana, for any use, is illegal; under
current state laws, individuals can incur a fine of up to $600 for
possessing even trace amounts of marijuana.

Of the 6.5 million people arrested in the United States since 1993 on
account of marijuana, including the 697,000 in the last two years, 88
percent were apprehended not for the cultivation or distribution of the
drug but for possession, according to Crime in the United States, the FBI's
annual crime report.

Brown said marijuana, which he prefers to smoke in a pipe, is an
inseparable accommodation to many of his daily activities, such as reading,
hanging out with friends, and even studying for classes.

Brown said he carries a 3.85 GPA.

He said: "Two years ago I got really excited about the rise of the
marijuana initiative here in Nevada, and I really thought it was going to
pass. But when that woman from the Las Vegas Sun died and her family
denounced the initiative, which got a lot of press, I knew [the initiative]
was bound to fall."

Aug. 9, 2002: Inevitable I

Las Vegas Sun Vice President Sandra Thompson - a revered journalist,
beloved wife and mother, and adored community leader-died in an abrupt and
unforeseeable moment. At 7:30 in the morning Thompson was waiting at a red
light on Far Hills Avenue, on Interstate 215 just south of Summerlin
Parkway, with the invincible patience that characterized the woman whose
mentorship touched innumerable young journalists in the Las Vegas Valley,
when 21-year-old John Simbrat slammed his silver SUV into the rear end of
her idle Toyota Camry with such force that his front bumper ended up
grazing her driver seat.

In stable condition following the accident, Simbrat confessed to falling
asleep moments before the incident; and thus, there were no skid marks at
the accident scene, only the tire marks on Thompson's sedan, which absorbed
the full impact of what one witness called "a speeding bullet."

Soon after the fatal accident, laboratory reports showed an immoderate
level of marijuana derivatives in Simbrat's system at the time of the
accident. Later that year, Simbrat pleaded guilty to driving under the
influence of a controlled substance and was sentenced to prison for five-12
years.

In the months succeeding Thompson's death, her husband and daughter - Gary
and Kelly, respectively - joined the opposition against an initiative in
Nevada seeking to legalize the possession of up to three ounces of
marijuana. Along with several poignant anti-marijuana speeches, Gary
Thompson recorded a TV commercial that rebuked the initiative and joined
his daughter in a national news broadcast in which he discussed the
incontestable part marijuana played in his wife's death.

Articulating the crux of his argument, Gary Thompson said: "There are 36
million visitors in Las Vegas every year. If one percent of them smoke
marijuana then that is 360,000. Some will drive: deaths are inevitable."

Nov. 5 2002: Inevitable II

Supporters of the marijuana initiative suffered an incontrovertible defeat
at the election polls, where 69 percent of Nevada voters disapproved the
initiative. The highly publicized ballot measure, called Nevadans for
Responsible Law Enforcement and termed "Question 9" on the ballot, would
have made it legal for adults 21 years and older to possess up to three
ounces of marijuana, a drug the American government prohibited in 1937.

Question 9 had garnered national attention during its campaign: proponents
of the initiative that would have made Nevada the first haven in America
for marijuana users appeared on national newscasts, often jousting with the
initiative's opponents; Time Magazine ran a feature article on the issue,
its local and national significance, and its underlying principles; and
debate surfaced around the country in myriad forums such as newspapers,
college and high school classes, coffee shops, and internet chat rooms.

The election results of the marijuana initiative - 39 percent "Yes", 61
percent "No": a ratio that most experts believe was a remnant of the
conservative tidal wave whose incipience in the 2000 presidential election
gained unstoppable momentum in the aftermath of 9/11 - surprised most
people, even the victors.

Sandy Heverly, executive director of Stop DUI and a leader of Nevadans
Against Legalizing Marijuana, said: "Once you leave the Strip you'll find
families that work everyday, go to church, and do not want their children
subjected to more drugs in our society."

Andy Anderson - a retired police officer, former president of the Nevada
Conference of Police and Sheriffs, and prominent supporter of NFLRE - said:
"It just failed to take out the fear factor that decriminalization is going
to lead to kids smoking marijuana and people driving under the influence."

Billy Rogers - founder of the political consulting firm which provided
guidance and office space to the marijuana initiative, The Southwest Group,
and often the mouthpiece for the initiative - said: "Clearly in Clark
County, the Sandy Thompson death had a tremendous impact on voters.

"The smartest thing the opponents did was to enlist the support of the
Thompson family. That event was beyond our control."

Rogers, nevertheless, found a reason to tread the swamp of his defeat: the
national debate that NFRLE ignited left an indelible mark on Americans.

He said: "Remember - this is a generational thing. This will happen; it's
inevitable."

During the initiative's ephemeral and tearless elegy, supporters of the
campaign to regulate marijuana vowed to bounce back. Rogers advised his
staff not to give up.

"Nobody knows what the election is going to look like in 2004," Rogers said.

Feb. 18, 2004: We came up with a tailored version

In an effort to resurrect the measure that had been vanquished two years
earlier, the Committee to Regulate and Control Marijuana, with new and
winsome amendments filed an initiative with the Nevada Secretary of State's
office.

Leaders of the revised initiative, called the Regulation of Marijuana
amendment, purported to have learned from the criticisms which doomed the
2002 measure. The authors of the new initiative reduced the amount of
permissible marijuana from three ounces to one, and hardened the penalties
against irresponsible usages of the drug, such as distribution to minors
and driving under the influence.

Moreover, the Regulation of Marijuana amendment, according to the
initiative's official website, would "direct the state legislature to
regulate the manufacture, taxation and sale of marijuana."

In a UNLV study conducted in October of 2002, Keith Schwer, Ph. D., and
Mary Riddel, Ph. D., found that the state of Nevada would benefit from a
tax-revenue stream of approximately $28.6 million a year if the government
regulated the manufacturing and distribution of marijuana.

A provision of the new initiative designates the tax revenues to alcohol
and drug treatment and education.

Committee Spokesperson Jennifer Knight, a former reporter at The Las Vegas
Sun who used to work with Sandy Thompson, said: "After the 2002 election we
asked 'why was the marijuana initiative shot down?' With the answers we
received from voters we came up with a tailored version, written to fit
voters' desires.

"I did not vote for this two years ago because I was concerned about it,
but [the changes in this year's initiative] alleviate my concerns."

The secretary of state's office instructed the CRCM to collect 51, 244
signatures from registered voters in Nevada in order to qualify for the
Nov. 2 ballot. In addition, according to state requirements, CRCM's
petition had to represent 10 percent of the voters in 13 of Nevada's 17
counties.

CRCM officials, remembering the abundance of signatures they garnered in
2002, accepted the state's requirements without any objections.

Fueled by confidence and conviction, CRCM set off to make Nevada the first
state in which grown men and women could use marijuana in the privacy of
their homes, free not only of persecution but also, and perhaps more
importantly, the fear of persecution.

However:

Opponents of the 2002 initiative, no less vehement than their counterparts,
pledged to uphold their stance against any effort to legalize marijuana. A
battalion of the measure's enemies - law enforcement and city officials,
religious leaders, various conservative citizens groups - vowed to protect
the state's constitution from the encroachment of marijuana with their
every last drop of sweat and blood.

Las Vegas Sheriff Bill Young, who publicly detested the initiative in 2002,
said of the 2004 measure: "It's just more drugs, more people stoned, and
more people driving under the influence."

Sandy Heverly, a major opponent of the marijuana initiative, said: "We do
not need to legalize another drug that impairs."

Heverly's coalition, Nevadans Against Legalizing Marijuana, met one week
later to formulize an anti-CRCM strategy, which included beckoning the
support of federal drug czar, John Walters.

( The Regulation of Marijuana amendment

The Marijuana Policy Project chose Nevada as the pioneering state to
regulate the cultivation and distribution of marijuana on account of the
state's progressive nature. Moreover, Nevada is one of eleven states which
have decriminalized the moderate possession of marijuana, imposing fines
equivalent to traffic tickets on culprits instead of jail time; and in
2001, Nevada passed a law that permits marijuana use for medicinal
purposes. (Although, Nevada's constitution still prohibits the cultivation
of the drug, as well as its transportation into the state, thus leaving
patients with futile prescriptions.)

Jennifer Knight, explaining the principles driving the 2004 marijuana
initiative, said: "The crux of our argument is that current marijuana laws
aren't working. Use among high school students is at an all-time high. Kids
with developing minds should not get a hold of marijuana.

"I personally don't smoke marijuana. I have an 11-year-old son and I don't
want him to smoke either. That's why I'm doing this: for him."

For years, Knight said, our country has tried the "War on Drugs"- the
national campaign against illegal drug use in America, which germinated in
the Nixon presidency and spends millions of taxpayers' dollars every year -
but has yet to see results.

Knight stated that the purpose of the initiative is not to "legalize"
marijuana - which, technically, would mean that any amount of the drug
would be permissible - but to control it through governmental regulation.
According to Knight, detaching the drug from street dealers, who currently
enjoy imperturbable access to minors, and delivering it to the government
to regulate, would not only reduce teen use but also generate needed money
for the state in tax revenues.

"We know that regulation works," Knight said.

According to the CRCM, the marijuana initiative, if passed by voters,
would: eliminate the threat of penalties for adults 21 and over who
responsibly use and possess up to one ounce of marijuana; direct the Nevada
Legislature to regulate the manufacture, sale and taxation of marijuana,
ensuring that establishments distributing the drug are not within 500 yards
of a school or place of worship; designate tax revenues for marijuana to
substance treatment programs; and increase penalties for people who are
convicted of selling marijuana to minors and those who commit vehicular
manslaughter while under the influence of marijuana, alcohol or any other
substance.

CRCM believes that the marijuana initiative would have a ripple effect on
the state's crime rates, which are among the highest in the nation.
Firstly, the inordinate amount of police time allotted to marijuana cases
would be redirected toward violent crimes. Secondly, taking marijuana out
of the hands of drug dealers, around whom myriad criminal activities
center, would keep kids from entering dangerous zones.

If the initiative were to pass (which would require voter approval in Nov.
2006 as well), it would take effect on Dec. 5, 2006 - 73 years to the day
America revoked alcohol prohibition.

Cannabis

The plant from which marijuana derives is called cannabis, a native of
Central Asia. Pilgrims spread the seeds of cannabis all around the world,
from as early back as 4000 B.C. The plant, also known as hemp, with its
euphoric and relaxing effects, became not only an irresistible commodity in
the old world but also a worshipped sacrament, whose power to alter the
mind offered primordial cultures intercession with impregnable deities.

In America, colonists in the 17th century employed the fibers of cannabis
to produce paper, clothing and rope. The plant became so important to early
Americans that in 1762 the state of Virginia fined farmers who did not grow it.

Native Americans had popularized cannabis with their enticing uses for the
plant and its derivatives; most notably, as a passage into the spirit world
and as a pre-battle supplement.

After the Civil War, when the value of hemp took a steep fall, Americans
fell in love with the plant all over again; this time, on account of its
medicinal qualities. Cannabis was used to assuage the pain of various
ailments, such as migraines, rheumatism, depression, pellagra, and cancer.

The honeymoon was cut short, however, by the insurgence of more powerful
sedatives - many of which required syringes, and authorities who monitored
hemp dosages with the unmerciful austerity of the Taliban regime. )

March 11, 2004: Where is his solution?

Director of the White House National Office on Drug Control Policy John
Walters - better known as the nation's drug czar - spoke at a Nevada
substance abuse treatment facility, where he denounced the Regulation of
Marijuana amendment.

"Legalizing any marijuana possession for consumption is fundamentally
detrimental," said Walters, whom was sworn into President Bush's
administration on Dec. 7, 2001.

Several of Nevada's marijuana advocates inculpated Walters for the
devitalized 2002 initiative, claiming that his two unsolicited visits to
Nevada prior to the November balloting, in which he rebuked the potential
measure with unmerciful diatribes, not only violated democratic ethics but
also spent taxpayers' dollars clandestinely.

In his more recent visit to Las Vegas, Walters evoked memories of Sandy
Thompson with his argument that too many people are dying on account of
drivers who are impaired by the sedative drug.

The marijuana initiative, however, seeks to harden the penalties for
vehicle manslaughter, whether the motorist is under the influence of
marijuana, alcohol or any other substance.

Walters also stated that his administration had embarked upon a campaign to
eliminate the abundance of marijuana plants cultivated in American soil -
most of which, according to the drug czar, is seeded in public land. (For a
similar campaign in 2002, Walters invited Sandy Thompson's husband and
daughter to partake in the commencement ceremonies in Washington, D.C.,
four months after Thompson's tragic death.)

Speaking on behalf of CRCM, Knight said this in response to the drug czar's
speech: "Walters represents what is wrong with our current system; he keeps
supporting current marijuana laws that don't work.

"He [came] here to Nevada to tell us how to vote on a state initiative
while ignoring his own report that shows 67 percent of teens in Nevada have
tried marijuana. Where is his solution?"

Knight was referring to a study published by the White House National
Office on Drug Control Policy which found that 67 percent of high school
seniors in Nevada admitted to using marijuana.

In a Columbia University survey taken in August 2002, 85 percent of high
school seniors in America reported that marijuana is "fairly easy" or "very
easy" to attain. Most respondents said that marijuana was easier to access
than cigarettes or beer.

"No one wants his child to smoke marijuana," said Knight, who is the mother
of an 11-year-old boy. "It's easier for my son to get marijuana right now
than if he went to the store to try to get tobacco."

March 22, 2004: Ambivalent

CRCM officials were ambivalent toward the Las Vegas Review- Journal's
opinion poll, which reflected a disfavor of the marijuana initiative among
a pool of 625 Nevada voters.

According to the poll, 48 percent of the respondents said that they oppose
the initiative, while 43 percent favored it and nine percent were undecided.

The bad news for the marijuana advocates was that the managing director of
the poll predicted another defeat for the initiative, asserting that a five
percent gulf would be tough to overcome, especially with the law
enforcement coalitions yet to commence their oppositional attack.

The good news, however, was that a five percent gulf was much narrower than
the 21 percentage points by which the initiative lost in 2002.

"We are clearly moving in the right direction," Knight said.

Unconquerable and resolute, CRCM persisted in their journey to win Nevada's
approval and make it the first state in the nation to regulate marijuana.

March 30, 2004: The determinates of marijuana are complex

CRCM absorbed a devastating blow when Peter Cohen, a leading drug
researcher in the Netherlands -where marijuana is featured on the menu of
over 850 coffee houses and where the annual Cannabis Cup competition is
held to determine the world's best pot, opined that drug use in Nevada
would be impervious to an amendment that legalized the drug.

CRCM had employed the statistical trends in drug use among Netherlands
teens, which are substantially lower than Nevada's (and America's, in
general), as bait to hook potential voters.

"Legal status of marijuana...would neither increase nor reduce use levels
of marijuana in a population," Cohen said. "The determinates for marijuana
use are complex: they have to do with fashion, culture and economics."

According to Cohen and his colleagues at the Centre for Drug Research at
the University of Amsterdam, the intractable wave of marijuana use - rising
and falling, rising and falling - depends largely on social dynamics, such
as the counter-culture movement of the sixties (when, according to several
experts, marijuana possessed but a fragment of potency abounding in today's
reefer).

Furthermore, Cohen asserted that the correlation between laws and usage is
a pretext of politicians for and against the legalization of marijuana.

April 30, 2004: Denied

The Review-Journal reported that the father organization of CRCM, the
Marijuana Policy Project - an advocacy group based out of Washington, D.C.,
had asked the Nevada Secretary of State Dean Heller to demand John Walters'
expense report from when he visited Nevada in 2002 and March of this year.

The MPP accused the drug czar, whose lawyer claimed that Walters' position
immunizes him from codes governing most public officials, of
surreptitiously using taxpayers' dollars to fund his agenda against the
marijuana movement, which he proselytized during his three visits to Nevada.

Heller, after conferring with Nevada Attorney General Brian Sandoval,
denied the group's request.

May 8, 2004: Court sided with MPP

The Nevada Supreme Court sided with MPP in regard to the absence of John
Walters' expense reports during his 2002 campaign against the marijuana
group's initiative. The court ordered Heller to file a response that
justifies his reasons for not investigating, or penalizing, Walters.

May 21, 2004: The beauty of the initiative

In this "Year of the Petition," when Nevada citizens determined to change
the government in which they abide circulated a record 12 petitions,
canvassers for the Regulation of Marijuana amendment flooded the streets of
Nevada in an indefatigable effort to gather over 51,000 valid signatures by
June 15, the deadline for petitions to qualify for the November ballot.

Petition circulators for the Southwest Group knocked on the doors of
residents throughout the state - though they focused their efforts in Clark
County, where more than 70 percent of Nevada's registered voters reside -
spreading the gospel of their initiative to regulate marijuana. Circulators
not only solicited signatures of support but also offered to register
voters, if needed, at the same time.

"The beauty of the initiative," Billy Rogers, head of the Southwest Group,
said, "is that people can enact their own laws and constitutional amendments."

Regina Key, a senior at UNLV who claimed to have signed half of the
circulating petitions, said: "I love the idea of petitions - you know, what
they represent: Government of the people, for the people and by the people."

June 15, 2004: CRCM leaders...sighed with relief

Having gathered over 66,000 raw signatures, CRCM officials rolled into the
office of election officials on a wave of confidence and filed their
petition with the county.

CRCM members sighed with relief upon submitting their work - thousands of
supporters' names and addresses gathered under the scorching Nevada sun -
faithful that 73 percent of the raw signatures would pass the validity test.

June 19, 2004: "Because I Got High"

CRCM's sigh of relief was cut short when Billy Rogers discovered, sitting
on the chair of his desk, a box of 6,000 signatures that no one had
remembered to turn in.

Rogers immediately telephoned Clark County Registrar Larry Lomax, informing
him of the mishap and requesting that the signatures, which had been
notarized before the June 15 deadline, be accepted.

According to The Review-Journal, Lomax said: "[Rogers] was pleading with
me...Unfortunately, the state law says they have to turn it all in by June 15."

The only solace for CRCM was that even in default of the 6,000 signatures,
officials believed the petition still possessed enough valid signatures to
qualify. The Southwest Group, who guided the canvassing effort, had paid
petition gatherers and stressed the accuracy of signatures. The problem,
they worried, was that the margin for error had been all but eliminated,
especially in light of the state requirement which says 10 percent of the
registered voters in 13 of Nevada's 17 counties must be represented on the
petition.

The marijuana advocates feared they might have fallen short in smaller,
rural counties.

As the news of the reproachable mishap hit the streets, endless jokes
surfaced in the media and coffee shops. The most played song on the radio
that day, according to one internet report, was Afroman's 2001 hit,
"Because I Got High."

June 25, 2004: Judge Ken Cory rejected Rogers' claim

District Judge Ken Cory, after hearing the emergency case filed by Rogers
in regard to the misplaced signatures, said that county officials were not
obligated to count the 6,000 neglected signatures.

Cory rejected Rogers' claim that 6,000 voters would be disfranchised if
their signatures were not counted, placing the fault of the issue squarely
on Rogers' shoulders.

July 7, 2004: Problems with the affidavits: Heller discarded 19,830 signatures

Secretary of State Dean Heller announced that numerous signatures on the
marijuana initiative, along with two other initiatives seeking a spot on
the November ballot, would not be counted due to problems with the affidavits.

According to the secretary of state's office, several marijuana petition
circulators failed to observe the affidavit rule, which requires a
registered voter to sign not only an "affidavit of document signer" (to
testify to his belief that the signatures on the circulation are of other
registered voters) but also the petition itself.

In the case of the marijuana petition circulators, some were not registered
voters and failed to have a registered voter sign the affidavit; and others
who were registered voters signed the affidavit but did not sign the actual
petition.

As a result, Heller discarded 19,830 signatures on the marijuana petition,
submerging its hopes to win a spot on the November ballot.

Supporters of the initiative flailed their arms in protest, claiming that
they not only followed the rules given to them by Heller's office but also
that they circulated their petition in an identical manner as the 2002
petition, which sailed through the secretary of state's office without a
glitch.

"It seems like they're changing the rules," Billy Rogers said.

One supporter said: "All of a sudden [Heller] seems to be going out of his
way to take off the ballot initiatives that are very popular with Nevada
voters."

July 8, 2004: Sank into deep waters

Clark County Registrar Larry Lomax confirmed the bad news from the previous
day: CRCM's petition sank into deep waters, having failed to submit enough
valid signatures to qualify for the state ballot. According to the random
sampling method used by election officials to verify the percentage of
valid signatures for any given petition, the marijuana initiative came up
nearly 5,000 signatures short in Clark County.

CRCM officials, nevertheless, kept hope afloat, professing their belief
that the initiative would qualify in other Nevada counties.

A spokesperson for Heller's office said that the initiative's survival was
still possible, but highly unlikely without Clark County.

Jennifer Knight said: "Here's the bottom line: We believe we're going to
make it."

July 9, 2004: Didn't possess enough signatures to earn a spot on the
November ballot

The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported that it had obtained a letter that a
Republican national committeeman for Nevada, Joe W. Brown, sent to election
officials, in which he highlighted affidavit defaults in various petitions.

In addition, The R-J, having obtained its information from inside sources,
reported that the Regulation of Marijuana amendment did not possess enough
signatures to earn a spot on the November ballot.

July 13, 2004: More than 16,000 signatures short

Dean Heller announced that the initiative to legalize one ounce of
marijuana would not be on the November ballot, having come up more than
16,000 signatures short of the required 51,337.

Jennifer Knight said this in response to the funereal news: "I still think
we have a chance of getting this on the ballot. It's obvious we still have
to jump through more hoops than we intended."

July 27, 2004: The ACLU threw the CRCM a lifeboat

The American Civil Liberties Union threw the CRCM a lifeboat when it teamed
up with the marijuana advocates in filing a federal lawsuit that sought to
rescue the sunken initiative and place it on the November ballot.

According to the lawsuit, thousands of voters had been disfranchised by
archaic, trivial and unconstitutional restrictions.

Gary Peck, executive director of the ACLU of Nevada, said: "What is
paramount for us is the integrity of the [election] process. We want to
make sure that the rights of the voting public are properly respected and
that nobody is disfranchised. In this case, we actually support the
legalization of small amounts of marijuana."

The lawsuit presented three critical arguments: the "13 counties rule" is
constitutionally wrong, for it increases the weight of voters in smaller
counties and negates the idea of "one person, one vote"; the affidavit
rule, which was cataclysmic for several initiatives, is futile and violates
First Amendment rights; and signatures from people who registered at the
same times they signed the petition were wrongfully discounted.

In response, a couple of days later, Heller said: "I strongly believe that
the Nevada constitution is not a fast food menu that you can pick and
choose which parts you want to uphold and discard those parts that do not
fit your particular agenda."

Aug. 13, 2004: High with satisfaction

Proponents of the marijuana initiative left the U.S. District Court high
with satisfaction, after Judge James Mahan ruled in their favor in the case
brought before him by the coalition of ACLU, CRCM, MPP and several Nevada
voters.

Mahan sided with the initiative's advocates on two issues: he declared
Nevada's "13 counties rule" and "dual-affidavit rule" constitutional.

With 81 days remaining before the general election, Heller immediately
ordered his staff to verify all of the 66,000 gross signatures turned in
two months earlier; and further, he told them to hurry, as each county had
a mere 12 days to verify the signatures.

Mahan, however, sided with the state in regard to the third issue presented
by the lawsuit, a motion to redeem the signatures discounted by the state
because the signers registered and signed the petition at the same time.

In response, the plaintiffs stated that they would appeal the judge's
latter decision with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Aug. 16, 2004: This is unquestionably the worst election season

Temporary employees, whom had been hired to take on the daunting task of
filtering an oceanic volume of signatures in 12 business days, went to work
with CRCM members looking over their shoulders with binoculars and video
cameras.

Larry Lomax earlier denied CRCM's request to position a member next to each
worker.

"This is unquestionably the worst [election season]," Lomax claimed.
"Everything that can happen to us has happened to us."

Aug. 20, 2004: Trespass against democracy

Unable to confirm the fairness of the verification process, CRCM members
accused election officials of another trespass against democracy: hindering
their overview of a public procedure.

The advocates of the marijuana initiative claimed that they were placed in
a remote and neutralized corner.

Lomax said that the CRCM's claim was ridiculous.

"I'm sure this will all go to court," Lomax said. "They'll ...somehow
portray us as doing something to prevent them from successfully passing the
petition.

"They can't counter every decision all the way through or we'll never get
finished with it."

Sept. 1, 2004: The death of the marijuana initiative for a second time

Secretary of State Dean Heller announced the death of the marijuana
initiative for a second time. The cause of death, according to Heller, was
no different than the first time: insufficient signatures.

Recounts showed that CRCM gathered 49, 412 signatures from registered
voters in Nevada, 1,925 fewer than the 51,337 required.

However - Jennifer Knight said the CRCM expects the 9th U.S. Circuit Court
of Appeals to force the state to count the 2,360 signatures it rejected
because the voters registered to vote at the same time that they signed the
petition.

"The court has a history of not disfranchising voters," Knight said. "We're
confident."

Official reports stated the court would announce its decision on Tuesday,
Sept. 7.

Sept. 3, 2004: It's not all about smoking weed

Bob Brown, the UNLV student bold enough to testify to his marijuana habits
but not brazen enough to supply his real name, said: "I'm really hoping
this initiative makes the ballot. And I really hope that voters pass it.

"I wish people would get educated on the matter. It's not all about smoking
weed. For a guy like me, that's a part of it, but it's much bigger than that.

"I'm pullin' for it; that's for sure."

Sept. 6, 2004: Tomorrow will make or break our campaign

Jennifer Knight said:

"We've answered everything the opposition has thrown at us. Two years ago
the death of Sandy Thompson had a huge impact, but we've changed [our
initiative] to punish people who drive under the influence. [In addition,
Knight alluded to a nationwide report that showed marijuana-induced fatal
automobile accidents are millimetric in comparison to fatal accidents
caused by alcohol or reckless driving] All our opponents have now is to
cling to their fear.

"I think, by and large, a lot of people want to see a change. Right now the
drug war is not working. The number of Nevada teens using marijuana is not
decreasing.

"Tomorrow will make or break our campaign."