Pubdate: Fri, 21 Aug 1998 Source: New York Times (NY) Contact: http://www.nytimes.com/ Author: B. Drummond Ayres Jr. A TEST OF WILLS OVER DRUG LEGISLATION It was called Proposition 200 and it seemed straight-forward enough when it appeared on Arizona ballots in the fall of 1996. Backed by a well-financed grass-roots organization that called itself Arizonans for Drug Policy Reform, it proposed allowing doctors to prescribe marijuana and other illegal drugs for medical use by grievously ill and dying patients. Voters approved it. The Arizona Legislature, one of the most conservative in the country and in no mood to have the Grand Canyon State in the forefront of the much-debated national push to legalize illegal drugs for medical use, saw the proposition as a legislative end run by a special interest group that had considerably more in mind than just compassion for the sick. Legislative leaders said that while marijuana was the drug most talked about for medical use by Proposition 200's proponents, the measure, if allowed to stand as written, would also permit doctors to prescribe other illegal drugs like heroin, LSD and PCP. The legislature then amended the measure, as Arizona law permits, adding a rider that said Arizona doctors could not, under any circumstances, prescribe a drug not on the Federal Government's list of approved drugs. That amendment effectively gutted the measure. But the fight did not end there. Arizonans for Drug Policy Reform, having renamed itself The People Have Spoken, now has another drug proposal for voters to consider. Labeled Proposition 300 and scheduled to be on this fall's election ballot, it would restore Proposition 200 to its original form and instruct the legislature not to modify it again. The People Have Spoken group has drawn much of its support from George Soros, the international investor who also is active in a number of contentious social causes, including efforts to legalize illegal drugs for medical purposes. Another of the group's major supporters is John Sperling, president of the Apollo Group, an organization that runs nonprofit universities, including the University of Phoenix. Fighting back, state lawmakers are making sure that this time around, the official ballot description of the proposition is worded so voters will understand that they are deciding not whether to legalize not only the use of marijuana for medical purposes but also many other illegal drugs, some much more potent and dangerous. Two weeks ago, The People Have Spoken asked a judge to throw out the lawmakers' description of the measure, arguing that it was unfair for the legislature to be in a fight in which it alone wrote the rules of engagement. The court refused and the pamphlets now are being readied for statewide distribution. Besides Arizona, there have been major fights over drug legalization in California and Washington State, among others. - --- Checked-by: Rolf Ernst