Pubdate: Sun, 29 Sep 2002
Source: Newsday (NY)
Copyright: 2002 Newsday Inc.
Contact:  http://www.newsday.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/308
Author: Jimmy Boegle
Note: Jimmy Boegle is news editor of Las Vegas CityLife, a weekly newspaper.

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.
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MAP posted-by: Jo-D