Pubdate: Sun, 22 Feb 2015
Source: San Francisco Chronicle (CA)
Copyright: 2015 Hearst Communications Inc.
Contact: http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/submissions/#1
Website: http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/388
Author: Joe Garofoli

GOP'S CRUSADER FOR LEGAL POT CALLS IT CONSERVATIVE CAUSE

Politicians don't get much more conservative than Orange County Rep. 
Dana Rohrabacher. He was Ronald Reagan's speechwriter, an inspiration 
behind California's anti-immigration Proposition 187, a Cold War 
hardliner, and a man who self-deprecatingly calls himself a 
"Neanderthal Republican."

But now, Rohrabacher has emerged as a national leader in one 
not-so-conservative issue: legalizing marijuana.

"The marijuana laws have been used to expand the power of government 
over people's lives more than just anything else I can think of," 
Rohrabacher said recently in San Francisco, shortly after a prime 
speaking slot at the International Cannabis Business Conference. "I 
would like marijuana to be treated the same way we treat alcohol."

Doing so, he says, would be the proper conservative move.

Republicans believe in personal responsibility, he said. They believe 
in states rights - and medicinal marijuana is legal in 23 states and 
the District of Columbia, and adult recreational use is legal in 
four. "And Republicans are supposed to believe in the doctor-patient 
relationship," Rohrabacher said. "That's what Republicans are 
supposed to be about."

Reagan would have jumped on board now, too, Rohrabacher said. OK, 
maybe not Nancy Reagan, the driving force behind the "Just Say No" 
antidrug campaign of the 1980s, but her husband - the ex-Hollywood 
actor who costarred with a chimp in "Bedtime for Bonzo" - might have 
been a late-in-life convert. For conservative reasons.

"Reagan was a libertarian conservative, and he always felt that 
limited government was his goal - as was personal responsibility," 
Rohrabacher said. "I think he would be very susceptible to actually 
joining ranks with others to achieve this goal at this time. It was 
not doable in his time. Even with medical marijuana. But I think he 
would be on the side of freedom.

"He had me hanging around, after all," Rohrabacher said, tugging at 
his gray sweater vest and matching shirt to reveal a puka shell necklace.

In his younger days, Rohrabacher admits, he lived "a pretty wild life."

"My goal in life was to drink Tequila and catch a good wave," he said.

And yes, he smoked some weed.

His "free spirit" ways were so obvious that Lyn Nofziger, the press 
secretary of Reagan's unsuccessful 1976 presidential bid, once told 
him he "can't use marijuana on this campaign," the congressman recalled.

By then, Rohrabacher says, he hadn't smoked in years (he insists he 
gave the stuff up at 23). "I was focused on defeating the Soviet 
Union," he said.

Larger societal issues

Rohrabacher, who was elected to Congress in 1988, supported 
California's medicinal marijuana law and the failed 2010 state ballot 
measure to legalize pot for recreational use, but didn't make a huge 
deal about either.

But over the years, he began to see the larger societal issues linked 
to marijuana. He would like the federal government to ease 
restrictions on marijuana research to see "what wonderful things 
could come of it." He wants wounded combat veterans to have access to 
medicinal cannabis from Veterans Affairs hospitals to ease their 
suffering. And he's sickened by the money and time spent on policing 
and adjudicating marijuana crimes.

"Years ago, if I had been arrested for smoking marijuana, all the 
things I did to make this a better world wouldn't have happened," 
Rohrabacher said.

Last year, he joined liberal Rep. Sam Farr, D-Carmel, in crafting an 
amendment that would forbid the Justice Department from spending 
money on preventing the implementation of medical marijuana laws in 
states where voters have approved its use. Rohrabacher rallied four 
dozen Republicans to join him, telling them it was the conservative 
thing to do.

"He's been very consistent in his position, and he hasn't wavered - 
that means a lot," said Farr's chief of staff, Rochelle Dornatt. 
"He's been one of the reasons we've been able to have some success here."

"To have him out here saying this is huge," said Alex Rogers, 
executive producer of the International Cannabis Business Conference 
and a pot activist for more than two decades. "The message it sends 
is powerful: Your voters won't leave you over this issue."

Conservative district

Rohrabacher concedes that for a while last year, he was a bit worried 
about what his conservative district would think. But in November, he 
was elected with 64 percent of the vote - 3 percent more than he 
garnered in 2012.

"I think I've gained 5 percent of the vote of people who never 
consider voting for some right-wing jerk," Rohrabacher said.

But his stance on marijuana, he says, is "based on my principles and 
not some pragmatic calculation of political support."

"I'm 67," he said. "I might as well do everything I think is right. 
What am I worried about?"

Longtime marijuana leaders praise the Republican - which is not a 
phrase that has often been written.

"What's remarkable about him is that he's one of the few politicians 
who's leading from the front on this," said Dale Sky Jones, chairman 
of the Coalition for Cannabis Policy Reform and a leader in the 
effort to legalize weed in California and elsewhere. "The way he's 
explaining it to Republicans, they have a chance to get it right on 
cannabis now after all these years."

Rohrabacher visited the Green Door Medical Cannabis Dispensary when 
he was in San Francisco. He's considering getting a medical marijuana 
card so he can use a cannabis-based salve to ease the pain in his 
aching shoulders. The discomfort is so bad, he hasn't been surfing in 
more than a year.

"I'm going to try it out," he said, then smiled at the notion of 
becoming perhaps the first medicinal marijuana cardcarrying member of 
Congress. "If it helps, that's what I'll do."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom