Pubdate: Fri, 23 Sep 2005
Source: Helena Independent Record (MT)
Copyright: 2005 Helena Independent Record
Contact:  http://helenair.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1187
Author: The Associated Press
Cited: Marijuana Policy Project ( www.mpp.org )
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization)

NATIONAL GROUP PUSHES FOR LEGALIZING MARIJUANA

MESA, Ariz. (AP) -- A pro-marijuana group based in Washington, D.C.,
is looking for activists in Arizona to build grass-roots support for
legalized marijuana, with the eventual goal being to get the drug
legalized here for all adults.

The nonprofit Marijuana Policy Project is targeting seven states,
including also Delaware, Idaho, Maine, Montana, New Hampshire and Oregon.

The effort is in its infancy, and project officials emphasize they
have no master plan for the seven states.

Instead, the group is looking for local activists whose efforts would
be funded by the project's grant program. The eventual goal is to put
marijuana in the same category as alcohol, with the same kind of taxes
and regulation.

A request for proposals has been issued in the seven states, where
grant applicants are asked to list "escalating tactics that would
lead to a change in state law in three to five years via the state
Legislature or the statewide ballot initiative process," according to
a job listing on the Internet.

Tactics could include organizing demonstrations, lobbying state
lawmakers, building a coalition of supportive organizations and
generating favorable news coverage.

"It's about providing funding and providing organization," said
Krissy Oechslin, a spokeswoman for the project. "We'd like to bring
it off the street and regulate it."

Barnett Lotstein, a special assistant in the Maricopa County
Attorney's Office, said the effort would go much further than previous
Arizona medical marijuana initiatives, but it's not surprising.

"The objective was, once you get people to think of drugs as
medicine, the next step is legalization," he said. "The ultimate
goal of people who propose the legalization of marijuana is the
legalization of all drugs."

The project has targeted Arizona because of support residents have
shown for medical marijuana, said Oechslin.

Voters here approved a ballot initiative in 1996 that gave doctors
authority to prescribe marijuana to seriously ill patients.

Public support continued two years later, when voters defeated a
referendum sent to the ballot by state lawmakers, who wanted the U.S.
Food and Drug Administration to approve marijuana before Arizona
doctors could prescribe the drug.

However, voters also rejected a 2002 ballot measure aimed at
correcting problems in the 1996 initiative. Doctors were afraid to
write prescriptions for marijuana because federal authorities
threatened to take away their prescribing authority, said Dr. Jeffrey
Singer, a Phoenix surgeon and a medical marijuana campaign activist.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Richard Lake