NEVADA PUSHES NEXT FRONTIER: LEGALIZING POT

Taboo-Breaking State May Blaze Trail Leading to Softer Marijuana Laws

LAS VEGAS -- There are no marijuana plants, bongs, rolling papers, lava
lamps or hemp tote bags at the offices of the Nevadans for Responsible Law
Enforcement. Just a bunch of earnest young people working the phones,
tapping at computers and poring over electoral maps of Las Vegas.

As Nevada considers whether to break yet another taboo and become the first
state to legalize marijuana, campaigners are playing it straighter than
straight.

"Our opponents would love it if we were hippies and we were stoned all the
time," said Billy Rogers, who heads the legalization campaign. "But it's
not about Birkenstocks and pot plants. It's about whether responsible
adults are going to continue to go to jail for relaxing with a bit of
marijuana after a hard day at the office."

Question 9, which will appear on the ballot in a statewide election on Nov.
5, would amend Nevada's constitution to prohibit authorities from
prosecuting any adult for the private use of 85 grams or less of marijuana.
The campaign put Question 9 on the November ballot by gathering a record
109,000 signatures on a petition, double the number needed.

If Nevadans vote Yes once in November and again in 2004, then Nevada could
conceivably see government-grown marijuana sold openly in state-regulated
shops on the Las Vegas strip.

Even for freewheeling Nevada, home of drive-through divorce,
round-the-clock gambling and legal brothels, it would be a big step.

Legalization would put Nevada at odds with the federal government's
campaign against drugs and insert the state into an international quarrel
between the United States and other countries such as Canada that are
moving to soften marijuana laws.

On the other hand, it might also bring in millions in taxes and draw
thousands of new visitors to constantly evolving Las Vegas.

A University of Nevada study this week showed that Nevada would take in
more than $28-million (U.S.) a year in marijuana taxes.

"Three or four years from now, you might have people flying into town on a
casino ticket and going down the street to the friendly hemp store," said
travel agent Terry Wisley, who foresees Las Vegas becoming the "Amsterdam
of America."

That alarms people such as Sandy Heverly, a local housewife and activist
against impaired driving who is heading the campaign to defeat the
legalization drive.

"If marijuana is legal, more people are going to use it, more people are
going to abuse it, she said, "and more people are going to drive under the
influence of it."

She called the marijuana initiative an "insane" step that would tarnish
Nevada's name and bring in a flood of unwanted drug tourists.

That strikes Mr. Roberts of the Yes campaign as absurd. "You'd think they
lived in Peoria, Illinois," he said. "Does anybody here complain about
prostitution tourists or gambling tourists?" If the opponents are really
concerned about addiction, he said, "Why aren't they out there campaigning
against casinos that give away free alcohol to gamblers?"

Even so, Mr. Rogers and the campaign have gone to extraordinary lengths to
reassure conservative voters that legalizing small amounts of marijuana
won't turn the state into "a 24/7 Grateful Dead concert."

The initiative stipulates tough penalties for selling marijuana to
children, smoking it in public or driving under the influence. Those who
sold it without a licence would earn an automatic jail term.

Mr. Rogers argues that legalization will make it easier for Nevadans who
use marijuana for medical problems to obtain the drug. It would also spare
police the hassle of arresting people for a minor vice and free them to
concentrate on real problems like drunk drivers and violent crime, he says.

Opponents say those arguments are full of holes. They note that Nevada
voters approved a measure to legalize the medical use of marijuana two
years ago.

Last year, the state assembly voted to make possession of less than 30
grams of marijuana a misdemeanour punishable by a $600 (U.S.) fine.

In 2000, the latest year for which figures are available, a record 743,000
people were imprisoned in the United States for marijuana offences, 90 per
cent for simple possession.

The Nevada campaign is part of a nationwide effort to soften laws against
marijuana, which Washington first made illegal in 1937.

Twelve states have reduced penalties for using small amounts of marijuana
to a misdemeanour, with fines as low as $100 (U.S.). Nine states allow
doctors to prescribe it for the treatment of AIDS, epilepsy, glaucoma and
other ailments.

Abroad, British authorities have stopped arresting people for possessing
marijuana for personal use, and in Canada the government indicated in the
Throne Speech this month that it is leaning toward decriminalization.

U.S. authorities are fighting back. The country's drug czar, John Walters,
came to Las Vegas last week to warn Nevadans against legalizing marijuana,
which he said would continue to be against federal law whatever the state does.

Mike Mayberry, chief of police in Henderson, a fast-growing Las Vegas
bedroom community, said that legalization would not save police time
because they seldom arrest people for small amounts of marijuana anyway.

"That's a bunch of bull," he said. "We don't do it now." Legalization, he
said, is "a horrible freakin' idea" that would bring drug dealers and drug
tourists to Nevada, wash away years of drug education and send a terrible
message to children.

Other opponents argue that the 85 grams of marijuana that would be legal
under the initiative is not a "small amount" at all. To prove it, Ms.
Heverly and a group of companions -- most of them middle-aged suburban
women -- spent hours rolling joints from parsley flakes, which they say are
similar in weight and mass to marijuana. They got 255 joints. Ms. Heverly
totes them to speeches and meetings in a plastic baggie as a prop.

Counterattacking, Mr. Rogers held a press conference this week and held up
a bag of 250 Camel cigarettes that he said were more similar than parsley
cigarettes to real joints. It weighed eight ounces.

"We're up against people who will say anything to scare people. It's worse
than Reefer Madness," he said, referring to the classic antimarijuana film.

Ms. Heverly has equally hard words for the Yes campaign, pointing out that
Mr. Rogers is a Texan.

"The Nevadans for Responsible Law Enforcement are not Nevadans; they aren't
responsible, and they certainly aren't for law enforcement," she said.

Who will come out ahead is far from clear. One poll this week indicated
that 52 per cent of voters would say Yes, but others have showed the No
side leading.

The biggest local paper, the Las Vegas Review Journal, has come out in
favour of legalization, arguing that it "would end the needless harassment
of individuals who peacefully and privately use marijuana."

To get out the vote, Mr. Rogers has gathered a dedicated staff of 15 in a
campaign war room in an out-of-the-way Las Vegas office building. A veteran
of Texas election campaigns who greets visitors in a baseball cap and
cowboy boots, he often stays well past midnight to pore over tracking polls
and plan the next day's tactics.

The group will spend $1.5-million (U.S.) on the campaign, most of it
provided by a national lobby group, the Marijuana Policy Project.

Ms. Heverly's STOP DUI (driving under the influence) group, by contrast,
has raised just $4,000 (U.S.) for its fight.