POT SMOKERS' BAD BET

If you ask the folks from the Marijuana Policy Project why they chose to
make Nevada the nation's first battleground in the war to legalize
marijuana, you won't get a straight answer. They'll either dance around the
question or make very little sense.

"Nevada is the only state in the last decade that's enacted marijuana
decriminalization legislation," says Billy Rogers, the man the Marijuana
Policy Project sent to Nevada.

He's referring to a move by the 2001 state legislature to make possession
of an ounce or less of pot a misdemeanor. Until then, it was a felony to
possess any amount. So, the marijuana advocates have come to a state whose
pot laws were among the harshest in the nation less than two years ago. We
can only speculate about their reasons.

They've put a lot of time and money into Nevada, so they must think they're
onto something. They came from Washington, D.C., where they are one of the
nation's most prominent pot-legalization organizations, and formed a
political action committee, the hilariously named Nevadans for Responsible
Law Enforcement. As of their Aug. 27 contribution and expenses report, the
group has dropped more than $500,000 into the effort - nearly $387,000 to
pay the people throughout the state who gathered the 74,740 valid
signatures needed to get the question on the ballot.

But what makes them think Nevada voters will vote to legalize the
possession of up to three ounces of marijuana? They are rumored to have
polls showing that Nevadans are open to the idea. They probably looked at
Nevada's small population and figured that this would be a relatively easy
place to mount a statewide campaign. And they must have been counting on
Nevada's reputation as a libertarian-thinking, live-or-let-die,
anything-goes state.

Their reasoning is understandable.Nevada was the first state to give
gambling a home, and look how well that worked out: Nevada-style casinos
now dot the country. Nevada's rural counties are the only in the nation to
legalize prostitution, and Nevada has one of the nation's highest smoking
rates (either No. 1 or No. 2, depending on the year). When the federal
government wanted a place to dump its nuclear waste, Nevada was the only
place seriously considered.

Are you looking for a place to legally indulge all of your vices? Nevada's
the place to be.

Or, at least it used to be. Yes, Nevada still has the gambling, the
prostitution, the smoking and soon, the nuclear waste. But it also has a
growing and increasingly powerful right-wing movement. And that is why the
marijuana legalization effort will almost surely be voted down come November.

Until two years ago, Nevada arguably was one of the nation's gay-
friendliest states. In 1993, the legislature revoked the sodomy law,
deciding that what consenting adults did in their bedroom was nobody else's
business. In 1999, it became illegal for employers to discriminate on the
basis of sexual orientation.

But then in 2000, the Coalition for the Protection of Marriage formed.
Largely funded by right-wing Christian groups, as well as the Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the organization launched a successful
petition drive - just like the pro-marijuana drive - to put a question on
the ballot defining marriage as being only between one man and one woman.
This passed with 70 percent of the vote (although it needs to pass again
this year, as amendments to the Nevada constitution must pass by the voters
twice). That victory was used by its anti-gay proponents to convince
legislators to defeat a reciprocal benefits bill for domestic partners
during the 2001 legislature. Most political observers agree that if it
weren't for the success of the marriage ballot, the benefits bill probably
would have passed.

Conservative groups once viewed as fringe had gained power, seemingly
overnight. The right wing now controls the Republican Party in Clark
County, the area around and including Las Vegas, where more than two-
thirds of Nevada's population lives. The county Republican chairman, Steve
Wark, has been doing his best to drive moderate-thinking or
libertarian-minded Republicans out of politics. As an example, the party
failed to endorse moderate Republican State Sen. Mark James for
re-election; he ended up running for another office instead and is rumored
to be considering a party switch.

Not surprisingly, the marijuana ballot question has drawn the ire of some
of these same right-wingers. Law enforcement officials, led by Las Vegas
Metropolitan Police Department Detective Todd Raybuck and Washoe County
District Attorney Richard Gammick, have spoken out strongly against the
initiative, using the fact that the ballot question would legalize the
possession of the equivalent of 60 to 120 joints. That's a lot of
marijuana. And an initial endorsement by the Nevada Conference of Police
and Sheriffs was reversed following a huge outcry from some law enforcement
officials and the resignation of the organization's longtime leader.

Polls now show that the marijuana ballot question is doomed. July polls by
the Las Vegas Review-Journal and the Reno Gazette-Journal, the state's two
largest daily newspapers, showed voters were evenly split. But an August
poll by the Review-Journal, taken after the Conference of Police and
Sheriffs debacle, revealed that 55 percent were opposed and 40 percent were
in favor.

The Marijuana Policy Project may have picked the right state to start its
marijuana legalization effort. But it seems to have picked the wrong time.