Pubdate: Thu, 27 Feb 2014
Source: Day, The (New London,CT)
Copyright: 2014 The Day Publishing Co.
Contact:  http://www.theday.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/293
Author: Rick Lyman, New York Times News Service

MORE STATES CONSIDER LEGALIZING MARIJUANA

"Some feel it's not an appropriate issue for an election year, and 
others want to wait and see what happens in Colorado. But a lot of 
other people are very anxious to take the revenue part of this very seriously."

A little over a year after Colorado and Washington legalized 
marijuana, more than half the states, including some in the 
conservative South, are considering decriminalizing the drug or 
legalizing it for medical or recreational use. That has set up a 
watershed year in the battle over whether marijuana should be as 
acceptable as alcohol.

Demonstrating how marijuana is no longer a strictly partisan issue, 
the two states considered likeliest this year to follow Colorado and 
Washington in outright legalization of the drug are Oregon, dominated 
by liberal Democrats, and Alaska, where libertarian Republicans hold sway.

Advocates of more lenient marijuana laws say they intend to maintain 
the momentum from their successes, heartened by national and 
statewide polls showing greater public acceptance of legalizing 
marijuana; President Barack Obama's recent musings on the 
discriminatory effect of marijuana prosecutions; and the release of 
guidelines by his Treasury Department intended to make it easier for 
banks to do business with legal marijuana businesses.

Their opponents, though, who also see this as a crucial year, are 
just as keen to slow the legalization drives. They are aided by a 
wait- and-see attitude among many governors and legislators, who seem 
wary of pushing ahead too quickly without seeing how the rollout of 
legal marijuana works in Colorado and Washington.

"We feel that if Oregon or Alaska could be stopped, it would disrupt 
the whole narrative these groups have that legalization is 
inevitable," said Kevin A. Sabet, executive director of Smart 
Approaches to Marijuana, which is spearheading much of the effort to 
stop these initiatives. "We could stop that momentum."

Still illegal under U.S. law

Despite the drug still being illegal under federal law, the Obama 
administration has said it will not interfere with the rollout of 
legal marijuana in the states, as long as it is kept out of the hands 
of minors.

At least 14 states-including Florida, where an initiative has already 
qualified for the ballot- are considering new medical marijuana laws 
this year, according to the Marijuana Policy Project, which supports 
legalization, and 12 states and the District of Columbia are 
contemplating decriminalization, in which the drug remains illegal, 
but the penalties are softened or reduced to fines. Medical marijuana 
use is already legal in 20 states and the District of Columbia.

An even larger number of states, at least 17, have seen bills 
introduced or initiatives begun to legalize the drug for adult use 
along the lines of alcohol, the same approach used in Colorado and 
Washington, but most of those efforts are considered unlikely of 
success this year.

The allure of tax revenues is also becoming a powerful selling point 
in some states, particularly after Gov. John W. Hickenlooper of 
Colorado said last week that taxes from legal marijuana sales would 
be $ 134 million in the coming fiscal year, much higher than had been 
predicted when the measure was passed in 2012.

In Rhode Island, which is struggling financially, national and local 
advocates for legalization say the Colorado news is sure to help 
legislation introduced in February to legalize the drug.

"Some feel it's not an appropriate issue for an election year, and 
others want to wait and see what happens in Colorado," said state 
Sen. Joshua Miller, a Democrat who is sponsoring the Rhode Island 
legalization law. "But a lot of other people are very anxious to take 
the revenue part of this very seriously."

Opponents of legalization, meanwhile, are mobilizing across the 
country to slow the momentum, keeping a sharp eye on Colorado for any 
problems in the rollout of the new law there.

"Legalization almost had to happen in order for people to wake up and 
realize they don't want it," Sabet said. "In a strange way, we feel 
legalization in a few states could be a blessing."

California had been considered a possibility to legalize marijuana 
this year through a ballot proposition - one to do just that failed 
in 2010 - but the Drug Policy Alliance, which had been leading the 
effort, decided this month to wait until 2016.

While much of the recent attention has focused on these legalization 
efforts, medical marijuana may also cross what its backers consider 
an important threshold this year - most notably in the South where 
Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina are among the states considering such laws.

A narrow majority of Americans - 51 percent - believe marijuana 
should be legal, according to a New York Times/ CBS News poll 
conducted last week, matching the result in a CBS News poll the 
previous month. In 1979, when The Times and CBS first asked the 
question, only 27 percent wanted cannabis legalized.

There were stark differences in the new poll, though. While 72 
percent of people under 30 favored legalization, only 29 percent of 
those over 65 agreed.

And while about a third of Republicans now favored legalization, this 
was far below the 60 percent of Democrats and 54 percent of 
independents who did so.

In Alaska, sufficient signatures have been collected to get the 
legalization initiative on the ballot.

"Alaska is a red state, but with a heavy libertarian streak," said 
Taylor Bickford, spokesman for the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana 
Like Alcohol in Alaska. "The idea of personal freedom and 
responsibility is uniting Alaskans on both sides of the aisle."

Under state law, however, the vote will occur during the Aug. 19 
primary, not in the general election.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom