Pubdate: Mon, 11 Nov 2002 Source: Joplin Globe, The (MO) Copyright: 2002 The Joplin Globe Contact: http://www.joplinglobe.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/859 Author: Joseph Perkins Note: Joseph Perkins is a columnist for The San Diego Union-Tribune. Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/rehab.htm (Treatment) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization) Bookmark: (Cannabis),http://www.mapinc.org/find?162 (Nevadans for Responsible Law Enforcement) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?163 (Question 9 (NV) THE DRUG CZAR WINS THE POT John Walters had a great day at the polls on Tuesday. Voters in Nevada, Arizona, Ohio and South Dakota heeded calls by the nation's drug czar to reject putative drug "reform" measures that appeared on their state ballots. Nevada's Question 9 would have legalized the sale and use of marijuana. Walters visited the Sagebrush State twice this fall, warning voters that pot is an "addictive gateway drug" that can lead to use of cocaine and heroin. Arizona's Proposition 203 would have decriminalized possession of up to 2 ounces of marijuana. Penalties for getting caught with cannabis would have been reduced to mere fines, much like like traffic tickets. Ohio's Issue 1 would have amended the state's constitution, mandating judges to send drug offenders to treatment instead of jail. During an appearance last month in Ohio, Walters cautioned the Buckeye State voters, "It will weaken the tools that the institutions have to help people get into treatment." South Dakota's Constitutional Amendment A would have allowed drug offenders to argue to juries that drug laws are unfair and urge acquittals on that basis. The Coyote State would have been the first to sanction jury nullification, permitting juries to disregard established law. Drug legalization advocates were chastened by the Election Day results, after passage in recent years of more than a dozen ballot initiatives around the country relaxing state drug laws. "We have seen tonight how hard the drug war ideologues are willing to fight and how dirty they're willing to fight," said Bruce Merken, a spokesman for the Marijuana Policy Project, one of the groups coordinating the multi-state campaign. Merken protests too much. For if there has been any dirty fighting by ideologues on either side of the drug war, it has been by those like Merken's group, like the National Organization to Reform Marijuana Laws, that favor scrapping the nation's drug laws. Indeed, neither the Marijuana Policy Projector or NORML or other confederate organizations come right out and tell voters that they advocate drug legalization, that they would allow the sale and use not only of marijuana, but also cocaine, heroin, methamphetamines, LSD, ecstasy and every other imaginable controlled substance. Instead, they suggest to voters that they are merely interested in "reforming" the nation's drug laws to help the sick or to relieve the taxpayers of the unnecessary burden of incarcerating harmless drug offenders. And it's because drug legalization advocates hide their ulterior motive that voters in nine states so far have been duped into approving ballot initiatives allowing the sale and use of marijuana for supposed "medical" purposes. Marijuana has been held out during those initiative campaigns as a palliative for patients suffering from such diseases as cancer, AIDS and multiple sclerosis. Despite the fact that there is no hard scientific evidence proving the efficacy of medical marijuana. And despite research showing that marijuana damages short-term memory, distorts perception, impairs judgment and complex motor skills, and alters the heart rate. And that marijuana use can lead to severe anxiety and can cause paranoia and lethargy. But, then, the sponsors of those "medical" marijuana propositions couldn't have cared less about the safety and effectiveness of the drug. They just wanted to get their stealth pro-drug measures enacted. They figured that if they could get voters to approve marijuana use for putative therapeutic purposes, they could eventually get those same voters to approve marijuana for non-therapeutic purposes -- as Nevada's Question 9 would have done. And so on, until they effectively legalized all drug use. This insidious plan has the financial backing of three billionaires, George Soros, a New York financier, John Sperling, founder of the University of Phoenix nationwide chain, and Peter Lewis, former CEO of Progressive Insurance. Sperling, who has spent $13 million to legalize drugs, is perhaps the most strident of the troika. "The government's drug-reform policy is driven by a fundamentalist Christian sense of morality that sees any of these illegal substances used as evil," he told Time magazine. But most Americans are not fundamentalist Christians, yet the vast majority oppose drug legalization. That's because they recognize the deadly scourge that illegal drugs represent. Now that Sperling and his fellow billionaires have been outed, now that their deceptive drug legalization crusade has been exposed, the public is wising up. That's why pro-drug ballot measures in Nevada, Arizona, Ohio and South Dakota failed on Election Day. Joseph Perkins is a columnist for The San Diego Union-Tribune. - --- MAP posted-by: Jo-D