ASHCROFT HITS THE ASTROTURF

Under the fearless leadership of Attorney General John Ashcroft, the
U.S. Department of Justice has taken to churning out prewritten op-ed
pieces in support of mandatory minimum sentencing requirements, which
are being pitched to local newspapers bearing the signatures of local
U.S. attorneys, reports the Drug Reform Coordination Network.
Ashcroft's full-throttle "AstroTurfing" campaign -- i.e., a
pseudo-grassroots campaign -- comes in response to a growing
discontent with the man-min sentencing structure, voiced by several
federal judges, including Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy --
and, more recently, a June 24 Supreme Court decision (Blakley v.
Washington), in which the court opined that juries, and not judges,
must decide the facts of a case if those facts may result in a longer
sentence.

The DOJ's bolstering campaign was outed earlier this month by the
advocacy group Families Against Mandatory Minimums and the National
Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, after the "model" op-ed
turned up in three different newspapers. And last week DRCNet spotted
the same piece -- which warns that the high court's Blakley decision
jeopardizes "the safety of America" -- in three Tennessee newspapers,
signed by two different U.S. attorneys.

Meanwhile, the Nevada Supreme Court has declined a motion filed by the
Marijuana Policy Project, which asked the court to force federal drug
czar John Walters to account for all taxpayer money he spent in 2002
stumping in the Silver State against a ballot initiative that sought
to decriminalize possession of up to 3 oz. of marijuana.

The MPP argued that Walters' visits to the state were in clear
violation of the 1939 Hatch Act, which regulates the political
activities of government officials. Further, Walters refused to comply
with Nevada's election expenditure reporting requirements and was
chastised by the state's attorney general for his "disturbing"
interference in the state vote.

Nonetheless, Walters was allowed to circumvent the law after the AG
opined that Walters would likely prevail in court.

On Aug. 18, the state's highest court confirmed that opinion in a
one-paragraph order.