MARIJUANA LAWS ONCE AGAIN TAKING HIGH PROFILE IN ALASKA POLITICS

Juneau, Alaska -- Wev Shea has been fighting Alaska's marijuana laws for
more than two decades. And what a long strained trip it's been. As a U.S.
attorney in Alaska a decade ago, Shea took a tough stand against illegal
drugs and was often criticized for it.

In 1990, he backed the initiative that criminalized pot in the state. In
1998, he unsuccessfully fought a voter initiative for medical marijuana.
And in 2000, he helped defeat what he called a "bizarre" attempt to
legalize marijuana and consider reparations for some drug convicts.

"There's a lot of people that still think smoking dope is just as fine as
having a glass of wine or a beer," said Shea, 59, of Anchorage. "The
general consensus is it really doesn't affect us, and we are free thinkers."

Like voters in several states, Alaskans may soon be asked to rethink some
of the tough anti-drug policies adopted during the Reagan era of "Just Say No."

Shea, now a private practice attorney active with the Institute on Global
Drug Policy, said he will take up the fight again as pot makes another
appearance in state politics.

In August, a state Court of Appeals decision made it legal for Alaskans to
possess four ounces of marijuana in their homes for personal use.

Then, an Anchorage Superior Court judge gave pro-pot forces a second chance
to try to put their legalization initiative on next year's ballot.

Alaskans have had a long history of winking at drug prohibition efforts,
even before a 1975 state Supreme Court decision first made it legal to
possess small quantities of marijuana in the home.

Fifteen years later, voters would decide to make marijuana possession a
crime _ a law that held until August, when the state Court of Appeals
reaffirmed the landmark 1975 Ravin decision.

The appeals court ruling reversed the drug conviction of a North Pole man
and at the same time derailed the 1990 initiative that had allowed his
arrest. It's caused no minor stir within law enforcement circles and the
Republican administration of Gov. Frank Murkowski.

Attorney General Gregg Renkes, appointed by Murkowski as the state's top
prosecutor, grudgingly agreed to abide by the decision, but directed police
to confiscate pot for possible federal prosecution.

He has asked the U.S. attorney's office for help, since having any amount
of marijuana is a federal crime. It remains unclear whether federal
prosecutors will take up the slack in Alaska's drug laws.

Meanwhile, Renkes is also seeking a rehearing of the August ruling, a sort
of legal "do-over" in which the state could argue the wider implications of
the ruling.

The appeals court decision of this minor drug charge turned on broad
right-to-privacy protections added to the Alaska Constitution by voters in
1972. That constitutional amendment inadvertently led to the state Supreme
Court opinion three years later legalizing some in-home marijuana use.

The case centered on Irwin Ravin, an Anchorage lawyer stopped by police for
a taillight violation. His car was searched _ and pot was found _ after he
refused to sign the citation.

In an appeal to the state Supreme Court, Ravin would argue right to privacy
protections. The Supreme Court reversed Ravin's marijuana conviction and
sent it back to a lower court.

Alaskans' right to be left alone in their homes was more important than the
state's obligation to police small amounts of pot, the court ruled.

Once renowned for its independent bent, Alaska in recent years has become
increasingly conservative. But its attitude toward marijuana is gauged
every couple of years by voters, who said yes to medical marijuana eight
years after criminalizing pot.

Next year, Alaskans may again be asked to legalize pot.

Shortly after the August appeals court decision, Anchorage Superior Court
Judge John Suddock ordered Lt. Gov. Loren Leman, a conservative Republican
and longtime marijuana foe, to reconsider a legalization group's efforts to
put a marijuana initiative on the November 2004 ballot.

Leman's state Division of Elections had disallowed nearly 200 petition
booklets on mostly technical grounds. Initiative backers were about 7,000
signatures short until Suddock ordered the state to count again.

Elsewhere, voters in some other states have started to chip away at aging
anti-marijuana laws.

Seattle voters enacted Initiative 75 in September, directing law
enforcement to make marijuana-use offenses their lowest priority.

Voters in 17 states have approved drug-reform initiatives, often to allow
marijuana use for medical purposes, provide treatment rather than
incarceration or ease asset seizure laws, according to a study by the Drug
Policy Alliance.

On the other hand, voters in Nevada, Arizona and South Dakota last year
spurned efforts to either legalize or lessen penalties for marijuana and hemp.

"I think what's happening is that more and more, people are starting to
realize that this is an area society needs to have a healthy debate about,"
said Bruce Mirken of the Washington, D.C.-based Marijuana Policy Project.
"Bit by bit, what you see is different communities and states acting on
small piecemeal, pragmatic reforms."

Alaska is among 10 states that currently have medical marijuana laws on the
books, along with Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland,
Nevada, Oregon and Washington.

Already in Alaska, there are currently 220 people on the state's medical
marijuana registry which gives them the right to purchase prescribed
marijuana, according to the Division of Public Health's Vital Statistics
office.

Jim Welch, a former sled dog racer from Eagle River, is one of them.
Diagnosed with multiple sclerosis 17 years ago and now in a wheelchair, the
53-year-old Welch finds pot lessens the tremors and spasms he frequently
experiences.

It isn't a cure and he uses it only a few times a month, he said. But it helps.

"I just think marijuana is such a benign substance, the real crime is so
many people have been put in jail," Welch said.

Welch supports any move to decriminalize marijuana, though he's not willing
to venture a guess about its fate here.

"I don't think it will result in much change and the only positive change
would be to relieve local police and troopers of a burden they're already
not dealing with," Welch said.

On the Net:

Marijuana Policy Project: http://www.mpp.org/

Institute on Global Drug Policy: http://www.estreet.com/orgs/dsi/