Pubdate: Wed, 08 Oct 2014
Source: San Diego Union Tribune (CA)
Copyright: 2014 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.
Contact:  http://www.utsandiego.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/386
Note: Seldom prints LTEs from outside it's circulation area.
Author: Nigel Duara

POT ADVOCATE SAYS TRAVELS SHOW LEGALIZATION WORKS

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) -- Rick Steves smokes the occasional joint, but 
he's not arguing for marijuana legalization in Oregon just because he 
likes to get high.

Steves, a nationally known guidebook author and host on public radio
and television, said Tuesday he's convinced that marijuana prohibition
in the U.S. operates solely to harm the poor and people of color, and
to profit off their punishment.

"It's not guys like me, rich white guys, who need it," Steves said
Tuesday at a downtown Portland hotel. "It's the people who are
arrested and cited, who are poor."

Steves is crisscrossing western and central Oregon in support of a
ballot measure to legalize marijuana, a movement that picked up steam
in 2012 when Colorado and Washington state each approved legal
marijuana and commercial outlets to sell it.

None of it would have happened without a plummeting stock market in
2008, Steves said.

"When you look at the end of Prohibition, it came during the
Depression because they couldn't afford to jail all those guys,"
Steves said. "There's no coincidence that (marijuana legalization) was
taken seriously only after the recession."

Steves wrote in the book "Travel as a Political Act" that his
globe-trotting reveals marijuana decriminalization is good for society.

"There is this idea that there's this reservoir of people who will
immediately begin to smoke pot if it's legal and ruin their lives,"
Steves said. "In Europe, they've shown that that's not true."

The No on 91 campaign, which draws most of its funding from law
enforcement groups, has said that marijuana legalization will make it
easier for children to access the drug.

Spokeswoman Mandi Puckett said Steves' message is muddled.

While European drug-control measures may rely on reducing harm instead
of imprisoning users, Puckett said Holland has found it is "not
successful at all there" in reducing dependency or crime.

Puckett said Washington and Colorado should be left to experiment with
the drug.

"Oregon would be wiser to slow down," said Puckett, adding that she
would likely never support full legalization. "Let them be the guinea
pigs."

Steves supported Washington state's successful 2012 measure to
legalize marijuana, but didn't back a 2012 Oregon legalization measure
because, he said, it was "pro-marijuana," without any input from
groups with a stake in the measure, like law enforcement. This year's
ballot initiative, called Measure 91, is "anti-prohibition," Steves
said.

The difference is the planning, he said. Money in Measure 91 is set
aside for law enforcement, schools and drug-treatment programs. The
measure seeks to legalize the sale and taxation of marijuana in
Oregon. The drug is now legal for medicinal use.

The campaign to legalize marijuana in Oregon raised about $2.4 million
by the latest reporting deadline in late September. The opposition, No
on 91, last reported about $170,000 in its coffers.

"If we jailed everyone who smokes the occasional joint in Oregon
tomorrow," Steves said, "it would be a lot less interesting place to
live."
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MAP posted-by: Richard