NEVADA IS NOT JUST BLOWING SMOKE ABOUT MARIJUANA REFORM

"All great ideas are controversial, or have been at one time," said
courageous American journalist George Seldes.

In November, voters in Nevada will have a chance to vote on the great but
still controversial issue of marijuana law reform. According to The New
York Times of Aug. 2, "After voting two years ago to ease state drug laws,
Nevada voters could go even further this year, making their state the first
to legalize marijuana and derive taxes from a regulated sales system."

This is an idea whose time has come in Nevada and around the nation. Billy
Rogers of Nevadans for Responsible Law Enforcement, the group that put the
reform measure on the state's November ballot, told the Times, "Most
Nevadans think it is a waste of taxpayers' money to arrest people for small
amounts of marijuana when the time could be better spent arresting
murderers and rapists."

Actually, most Nevadans seem about equally divided over the issue. The Las
Vegas Review-Journal, Nevada's largest daily newspaper, polled voters in
the Silver State and found that 44 percent of them favored the marijuana
legalization initiative, 46 percent were against it and 10 percent were
undecided.

On July 7, the newspaper endorsed the idea, saying that current harsh pot
laws push "the needless harassment of individuals who peacefully and
privately use marijuana. Nine states have in the last six years passed
initiatives allowing patients to use marijuana with a doctor's prescription
to ease the symptoms of such ills as AIDS and cancer, and about a dozen
states have ceased jailing citizens for possession of small amounts of
cannabis since Oregon pioneered marijuana decriminalization in 1974.

The proposed reforms in Nevada are far more sweeping than those in any
other state. The initiative would end criminal penalties for possession of
up to three ounces of the weed by citizens 21 or older and would, according
to The New York Times, "direct the Legislature to treat marijuana much like
tobacco products and alcohol, regulating it through a system that would
oversee how it is grown, distributed and sold, generating tax revenue in
the process."

Pro-pot backers of the legalization measure say that, if enacted, it would
have safeguards such as bans against advertising marijuana, selling it to
anyone under 21 or selling it near schools or in public places such as parks.

Keith Stroup of the Washington-based National Organization for the Reform
of Marijuana Laws called the Nevada proposal "a landmark initiative that
seeks more than what any state has accomplished so far." He also admitted
the federal government would probably never stand for the initiative. "It
is highly unlikely that the federal government would allow a state to
create a legal market," said Stroup, "What it would do is place enormous
pressure on Congress to take a rational look at the nation's drug laws. As
we begin to get more and more states considering legalization, it will be
impossible for Congress to stand in their way."

It's time for Congress, the courts and the White House to quit standing in
the way of freedom and compassion on the marijuana issue. For too many
decades, America's benighted pot laws have shown the hemp hypocrisy of both
major political parties.

Thirty years ago, in 1972, Republican President Richard Nixon ignored the
results of a national commission that recommended reforms in the pot laws.
In spite of the fact that the Nixon-era commission was chaired by a GOP
governor of Pennsylvania, Nixon dismissed its findings by snarling on his
now notorious White House tapes, "Every one of the bastards that are out
for legalizing marijuana are Jewish."

Under the White House administrations of both William J. "I Didn't Inhale"
Clinton and George W. "I Won't Say if I Did or Didn't" Bush, marijuana
arrests have soared to record numbers and cannabis clubs for medical
marijuana buyers have been hounded by big government federal agents from
both political parties.

While Europe currently reaps the benefits of pot law reform there, American
politicians of both major parties would do well to heed the wise words of
Abraham Lincoln who said, "Prohibition goes beyond the bounds of reason in
that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation and makes a
crime out of things that are not crimes. A prohibition law strikes a blow
at the very principles upon which our government was founded."