GRASSROOTS CAMPAIGN A GALVESTON D.A. CANDIDATE COMES OUT FOR CANNABIS

Thirty years ago, Stephen Hale was arrested for possessing marijuana.
Three years ago, his law license was suspended for delivering it. Now
the Galveston County district attorney is retiring, so Hale is
running for that office on a platform to free the weed. Legally, he
can't refuse to prosecute such cases -- but he can promise users he
will drop their misdemeanor marijuana charges. Hale handed out four
flyers declaring his high hopes on the steps of the Texas City
courthouse before the cops called to see if he was serious.

Hale, 49, drives a dark blue Chevy with Mardi Gras beads hanging on
the rearview mirror. His face is sunburned from surfing every time
the tide is high. Call in the middle of the afternoon and he's home
watching Springer. But there's one difference between him and typical
fringe candidates: This guy has experience as an elected public
official.

Born in Dallas, Hale started getting stoned the summer of '69 with
his cousin Billy Jack. His use increased after he got drafted. "It
made the army a whole lot easier to tolerate," Hale says. He was
busted in Walton County, Florida, after picking up a package of pot
"for a friend" at the bus station. The arresting officer didn't
immediately take Hale's billfold or get his name, so Hale decided to
escape. "I was a soldier," he says. "I was trained to escape, evade
and survive." He jumped out of a second-story window, vaulted a fence
and started running.

"There were police everywhere," Hale says. "I ended up getting pinned
in a swamp. I felt like I was Cool Hand Luke."

In 1979 Hale made the dean's list at South Texas College of Law.
Regardless, the Texas Board of Law Examiners refused to let him take
the Texas bar exam because he admitted he inhaled. The chairman wrote
that the board thought Hale lacked moral character. So he moved to
Alaska and returned to Texas in 1985 as a practicing attorney who
didn't need to take the exam. "Thank God," Hale says. "I hate taking
tests."

Voters in Wise County, about 70 miles northwest of Dallas, elected
him county attorney in 1992. In that Democratic primary, he ran
against a former law partner who had also been busted for marijuana
in the 1970s. "So neither one of us raised that issue during the
campaign," Hale says. Hale went to all of the candidate forums; his
opponent didn't. "I beat him pretty soundly -- he didn't try very
hard," Hale says. "He had been the county attorney before, and he had
too many enemies." Hale was unopposed in the general election.

During his time as Wise County's chief misdemeanor prosecutor, Hale
dismissed more than 500 marijuana possession cases against adults and
reduced sentences for first-time pot and DUI offenses.

"I thought it was the right thing to do," Hale says. "My job was to
see that justice was done, not blindly enforce the law." Especially a
law that he thinks is stupid.

People who have a toke or two aren't evildoers, he says. Prosecuting
people who dance with Mary Jane wastes court time and taxpayer
dollars, he contends. "It's insane, it's unjust, and it's
unconstitutional. We're not the Taliban. Our country is supposed to
be a country of tolerance, not intolerance."

Wise County Sheriff Phil Ryan says Hale was a nice guy, fun to be
around and easy to work with. Hale ran an efficient office, but his
drug policies didn't jibe with law enforcement agencies that wanted
drug users off the street, the sheriff says.

"We got mixed emotions -- it's like seeing your mother-in-law go off
a cliff in your new pickup," Ryan says.

During Hale's four-year tenure, officers became disillusioned when
they made solid pot arrests and cases were dismissed, says Doug
Whitehead, Ryan's chief deputy.

"We just got pissed off," Whitehead says. "He was [supposed] to
uphold the laws of the state of Texas, and he didn't do it. I never
saw anybody gang up against him and look like the Zulu warriors --
but it was demoralizing."

After he'd been on the job about eight months, reports began
appearing about the dismissal of the marijuana cases. There were
newspaper articles and angry letters to the editor from Mothers
Against Drunk Driving. MADD also was furious that Hale often reduced
DUI cases down to reckless behavior.

"We went nuts," says Bill Lewis, MADD's North Texas chapter public
policy liaison and former president. "It just really appalled
us."Hale says he simply didn't have time to prosecute all DWI cases.
He inherited 100 pending cases and could try only one a month, so he
negotiated plea agreements. "My view was 'It's better to get half a
pound of flesh off 100 defendants than to try and get that full pound
of flesh off of five,' " Hale says.

He lost his re-election race to an opponent who accused him of not
prosecuting child abuse or child neglect cases. Hale says his
short-staffed office turned such prosecutions over to the district
attorney because the D.A. made three times his salary and had more
time and resources.

An effort to run for D.A. in Denton County ended in 1998 when he was
arrested for delivery of marijuana. Hale says the narcotics task
force coerced an ex-girlfriend to narc him out. She begged him to get
her some pot, so he gave her a baggie. "I gave it to her," he says.
"Not sold it to her -- gave it to her."

But it's still delivery.

The indictment was dropped, although Hale's law license was suspended
for nearly two years, until October 2000. He tried to run for Harris
County D.A. in 2000, although the local Democratic Party barred him
from the primary ballot because of the license suspension.

Unable to find anything but courier jobs, Hale moved to Galveston and
bartended at Voodoo Daddy's until resuming his law practice. He says
he doesn't smoke anymore, but he won't say when he stopped. "Because
I don't have to," he says.

Now he carries voter registration applications in his briefcase,
canvassing surf stores and campaigning at bars on the Strand. He
feels it's his civic duty to run on the Democratic primary ballot. "I
enjoy seeking justice and fighting injustice," he says. "As a defense
lawyer you're not necessarily seeking justice, you're just trying to
do what's best for your client."

Some residents of High Island share his green vision.

"We're wasting resources chasing people down and turning them into
criminals," says probate attorney Wayne Lynch of Galveston. "They're
not going out there and catching enough thieves and robbers and
violent types. Instead their focus is all on potheads."

Lynch likes Hale, says he's a good guy, refers criminal cases to him,
but doubts that Hale will win.

"I don't personally think there's enough stoners out there to get
somebody elected," Lynch says. "I really don't."