FIRM'S ADS BACK LEGAL MARIJUANA

GREENFIELD - Either Joseph White is an excellent fund-raiser, or he
has an excellent cause.

White, a 40-something-year-old parent in Greenfield and professional
fund-raiser, founded and single handedly runs Change the Climate Inc.,
which advocates nationwide for the legalization of marijuana. The
annual budget for the 3-year-old nonprofit is about $500,000, all from
donations, White said. None of the donations pay for salaries, he
said. His regular job is as senior executive at the Amherst-based
fund-raising firm, Share Group Inc.

Donations come in by the hundreds of thousands of dollars, mostly from
wealthy businessmen who have made this their cause, White said. Small
donations are unusual, he said, except anonymously over the Internet.
He believes many people are afraid to be associated with this cause.

Currently, Change the Climate has 600 billboards and transit ads
posted in Washington D.C. Its advertisements take on several possible
themes, White said.

In San Francisco, for example, billboards portrayed a federal raid on
medicinal marijuana-use clinics.

In some parts of the country, the ads show a happy couple frolicking
in some vacation spot, with the text "Enjoy better sex! Legalize and
tax marijuana."

In Puritan Massachusetts, the focus is on the budget. The billboard
features photographs of teachers, firefighters, nurses, even
construction workers. The text is like "$138 million to save local
services."

White commissioned a $2,000 study by an economics professor at Boston
University, who came up with the figure of $121,000 million spent
annually in the state on marijuana law enforcement. The rest of the
money could come from taxing marijuana use, the study concluded.

Last week, one of those billboards got some unexpected publicity in
Westboro. The outdoor advertising company Clear Channels Inc. of
Stoneham, pasted Change the Climate's ad up over a police sketch of an
at-large rapist. The police sketch was running for free. Change the
Climate typically pays between $10,000 and $20,000 for a billboard,
White said.

When state police learned the billboard had an unauthorized photograph
of a trooper, they demanded it be removed. Clear Channels took the
blame for failing to use the stock photo of an actor, dressed as an
officer. Change the Climate's boards are being reformulated and a
large number will go up around Boston this week, White said.

There will be no billboards in Western Massachusetts, White said, even
though he considers this area to be among the most liberal in the
country. The reason, he said, is that the outdoor advertising firm
Lamar Advertising Co., its Hartford office, refused to run the ads on
their billboards.

"I looked at several versions of his designs, and with each version, I
got more and more uncomfortable with it," said Lamar Vice President
Stephen Hebert. "I just decided not to do it. It's not always a money
decision."

A big problem, Hebert said, is the association of the photographs of
professionals with marijuana, even though the message does not say
they support marijuana use.

Firefighter Robert McCarthy, now spokesman for the Professional
Firefighters of Massachusetts, said his organization does not approve.

"I don't know where they get off doing that," McCarthy said, a veteran
of Watertown's department.

"I really don't think it's in particularly good taste," said Turners
Falls Fire Chief Raymond Godin.

In Montague, Police Officer Douglas Brown, who is also the juvenile
and the Drug Awareness and Resistance officer, was willing to say he
does not support legalizing marijuana. He believes it would lead to
more problems for police, such as violence associated with alcohol.

Marijuana advocates point out that the drug has the opposite effect on
most users, making them less aggressive.

Detecting marijuana intoxication is much harder than alcohol use,
Brown said, and if children start using it before they go to school,
it could be a real problem. It would make enforcement of driving laws
difficult as well, he said.

Finally, Brown also believes what many taxpayers believe - money saved
in tax dollars never goes where the average tax payer wants it to go.
Like the tobacco control money, he said, marijuana taxes eventually
disappear into the state coffers.