NEVADANS TO CONSIDER LEGALIZING MARIJUANA

Residents will vote on limited possession and state regulation

LAS VEGAS - An elderly woman wearing a string of pearls.

A balding baby boomer in a gray suit. A mother with long, blond hair, gazing
at the sleeping infant cradled in her arms. They may not seem like typical
boosters of legalized drugs, but they all joined a crowd of volunteers who
turned out on a sun-splashed autumn afternoon to film a television
advertisement promoting a Nevada ballot initiative that would decriminalize
marijuana.

''We're Nevadans,'' the wholesome-looking assembly shouted for
the camera, ''and we're voting `Yes' on Question 9!''

The ballot question
Nevadans will consider tomorrow would decriminalize adult possession of up
to 3 ounces of marijuana for private recreational purposes and require the
state to regulate its sale and production.

The measure is the handiwork of
the Marijuana Policy Project, based in Washington, D.C., which chose
libertarian Nevada as its test state for the most serious challenge to the
nation's marijuana prohibition since the drug was banned by Congress in
1937.

''This movement is going mainstream,'' said Billy Rogers, a Texas
political consultant sent by the Marijuana Policy Project to set up Nevadans
for Responsible Law Enforcement and run a $1.6 million campaign funded
largely by Peter B. Lewis, former CEO of Progressive Insurance Co., who has
become a marijuana activist.

''They want you to believe that everybody who
supports this is a burned-out pothead, but most people who support this have
never tried marijuana,'' Rogers said. ''They simply believe in the freedom
to use it in the privacy of their own homes.''

While the measure is
embattled - last week's Las Vegas Review-Journal poll showed 60 percent of
likely voters oppose it - it has nonetheless rocked the antidrug
establishment, attracting two campaign visits since August by President
Bush's drug policy director, John P. Walters, and a $200,000 television
campaign funded by major Vegas resorts, which don't view marijuana users as
the sort of upscale clientele they hope to draw.

''We don't need a 24-hour
Grateful Dead concert on the Strip,'' said Billy Vassiliadis, a top Nevada
Democratic political consultant. If the measure passes, Nevadans would need
to pass it again in 2004 to make it effective under the state's rules for
amending its constitution. Support has come from unexpected quarters.

Among those appearing in pro-marijuana television commercials are popular
state Assemblywoman Chris Guinchigliani, who is a former head of the state's
largest teachers' union, and retired Las Vegas police officer Andy Anderson,
former chief of the state's umbrella union for officers, who believes police
waste precious time in busting stoners.

Even the Review-Journal endorsed Question 9 to ''bring compassion and common
sense to drug laws.''

''The fact that Question 9 is being seriously
considered is fairly momentous right there,'' said Charles Whitebread, a law
professor at the University of Southern California. ''If it gets even a
serious percentage of the vote, it will say that a serious percentage of
Nevadans are skeptical of present criminal prohibitions. That will be the
first chink in the armor of those who support criminal prohibitions.''

Much of the effort to appeal to voters by the pro-marijuana campaign has focused
on the one area of the debate that the nation seems to largely agree: that
patients whose doctors recommend marijuana to relieve pain and increase
appetite ought to be allowed to use it. Since 1996, eight states have passed
laws legalizing medical marijuana, including Nevada, even as the federal
government continues to maintain it is illegal and occasionally stages raids
on marijuana clubs.

A poll by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press last year
showed 73 percent of Americans support medical marijuana. Yet despite the
fact that medical marijuana use is technically legal in Nevada, patients who
qualify must risk arrest by buying marijuana from drug dealers.

The Bush administration believes the trend toward legalization is the result of
pro-marijuana advocates' blowing smoke, confusing well-meaning Americans
with the medical issue even though the drug has not received Federal Drug
Administration approval.

Far from harmless, Walters insisted, marijuana is
''an addictive gateway drug'' to cocaine and heroin that accounts for 60
percent of the 6 million Americans in drug rehab programs. ''It's the single
biggest source of dependency of any of the illegal drugs, more than twice as
important as the next most important drug, cocaine,'' Walters said.

Rogers countered that Marijuana Policy Project data show that 11 million Americans presently use marijuana with little trouble, and that 80 million have tried
it. One reason he viewed marijuana legalization as inevitable is because
''there are now two generations of people in this country who have tried it
or know someone who tried it, and they know that the drug czar is lying
about its effects.''

While some in Nevada businesses are high on Question 9
-- some travel agents say it will make Vegas the ''American Amsterdam'' - the
Strip megaresorts aren't.

This would bring Nevada ''the most liberal drug
laws in the union,'' said GOP consultant Sig Rogich, a former aide to
President George H. W. Bush. ''Las Vegas would become an ongoing Jay Leno
joke.''

Others suggested that Las Vegas's image wouldn't suffer much.

''They're always trying to give Las Vegas this lah-dee-dah image, but people
come here to gamble, to party, to have fun,'' said Patti Shock, chairwoman
of the Harrah Tourism and Convention Department at the University of Nevada
at Las Vegas.

''I don't know what they're so panicked about.'' Robert
Kampia, executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project, said the stigma
surrounding marijuana is starting to subside. ''If we win, we've taken a
huge step forward and showed there's more support for our issues,'' Kampia
said. ''But if we lose 48-52, that would still be an all-time record.''