Pubdate: Sat, 05 Oct 2002
Source: Salt Lake Tribune (UT)
Copyright: 2002 The Salt Lake Tribune
Contact:  http://www.sltrib.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/383
Related: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v02/n1838/a03.html
Related: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v02/n1099/a06.html
Cited: www.mpp.org (Marijuana Policy Project)
Author: Jimmy Boegle, Newsday
Note: Jimmy Boegle is news editor of Las Vegas CityLife, a weekly 
newspaper.  Original pubdate in Newsday (NY) was Sun, 30 Sep 2002.  A few 
days before this article was published in Newsday, an updated statewide 
poll, the first in over a month, showed the public likely to vote favoring 
the 'Question 9' initiative by 56% to 43%.
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?163 (Question 9 (NV))
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?162 (Nevadans for Responsible Law 
Enforcement)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/props.htm (Ballot Initiatives)

NEVADA NOT THE FERTILE GROUND POT PUSHERS WERE SEEKING

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.

"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. 
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's rural counties 
are the only in the nation to legalize prostitution, and Nevada has one of 
the nation's highest smoking rates. 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.

Conservative groups once viewed as fringe have 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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