IT'S TIME TO OPEN UP POT-LAW DEBATE

My thanks go out to New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg for clearing away
some of the smoke surrounding the marijuana debate. It was not his idea. He
was involuntarily drawn into it by a $500,000 print, broadcast and bus ad
campaign by the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws
Foundation.

As part of NORML's campaign against the city's policy of arresting and
jailing public pot smokers, the ads feature a photo of Bloomberg next to a
quote he gave last summer as a mayoral candidate. A New York magazine
writer asked whether Bloomberg had ever smoked pot, and he responded
cheerfully, "You bet I did. And I liked it."

NORML's ad praises Bloomberg's candor. "At last, an honest politician," it
says.

With that, Bloomberg joins such other political notables as Bill Clinton,
Al Gore, Newt Gingrich and Bill Bradley who have admitted to partaking of
the demon weed in their youth. Others, like President Bush, have simply
refused to answer questions about such possible youthful indiscretions.

Bloomberg did not back away from his now-famous pot quote, although he told
reporters that he wishes he had not answered the question in a way that has
come back to bite him. He says he's not going to sue over the use of his
likeness. But he's not going to change the city's pot policy, either. Some
52,000 people were arrested and jailed in New York for smoking marijuana in
public last year, up from 720 in 1992.

Nationwide, the number of arrests and incarcerations has climbed from the
hippie 1960s right through the eras of President Ronald Reagan, who advised
"Just Say No," and President Clinton, who "didn't inhale." In 1970, when
the marijuana legalization issue was just taking hold, there were 188,903
arrests, according to FBI Uniform Crime Reports. In 2000, the number had
climbed to a record 734,498, of which 88 percent were for simple
possession, not sale or manufacture.

More than 59,000 inmates are in federal, state or local prison for
marijuana offenses, including more than 15,000 for possession, not
trafficking, according to Marijuana Policy Project estimates based on
Bureau of Justice Statistics reports.

So while late-night comedians have a high time at Bloomberg's expense,
among those who are not laughing are the thousands who have been busted for
doing what the mayor and numerous other prominent oldsters can shrug off as
a youthful indiscretion.

That's why I thank the mayor for exposing, if involuntarily, how our
national hypocrisy over marijuana works. The same lawmakers who treat their
own pot smoking lightly often turn amazingly self-righteous about enforcing
pot laws on everyone else.

Even more sinister is the unequal way the laws are enforced. When the
children of the big shots have a drug problem, there's a good chance they
will be sent to a clinic, where their problem can be properly treated as
the health problem it is. When the children of the less fortunate have a
drug problem, there's a better chance they will be sent to jail.

I'm not ready to join NORML in calling for elimination of laws regarding
public marijuana smoking. There are many places where it simply does not
belong, any more than public drinking or public smoking of tobacco does.
But I am hardly alone among Americans who would like to see the debate
opened up so that marijuana might be regulated like legal drugs are.

Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Nevada, Oregon and Washington
have enacted laws legalizing possession of marijuana for medicinal
purposes. But the Clinton and Bush administrations have overruled them.
Voters in the District of Columbia overwhelmingly passed a similar local
measure, which was overruled by Congress, where the district's "delegate"
does not have a floor vote.

Polls indicate that most Americans (73 percent in a 1999 Gallup Poll) favor
legalizing marijuana for medicinal purposes. But Washington's political
leaders insist that their consciences should be our guides. I wonder what
they've been smoking.