cannabisnews.com: Nevada Blazes Trail for Legal Marijuana





Nevada Blazes Trail for Legal Marijuana
Posted by CN Staff on August 09, 2002 at 08:42:19 PT
By V. Dion Haynes, Tribune National Correspondent
Source: Chicago Tribune 
Nevada established its renegade reputation in the 1920s when local leaders thumbed their noses at the federal ban on alcohol, with one mayor openly threatening to put "a barrel of whiskey with a dipper" on every street corner.The state, long a haven for prostitution, then legalized the sex trade in 13 of its 17 counties. And at a time when the rest of America considered gambling taboo and confined it mainly to illegal backroom parlors, Nevada enshrined it in gaudy casinos.
Now the state regarded by many as the sin capital of America is again pioneering a new frontier: the legalization of recreational pot smoking.In November, Nevada voters will decide whether to become the first state to legalize the recreational use of marijuana, for quantities of 3 ounces or less, for adults 21 and older. If the measure passes this fall and again in November 2004 as required for amendments to the state constitution, Nevada also would tax marijuana and establish a system for distributing the drug--possibly selling it in smoke shops, pharmacies or coffeehouses.This week, the state's largest law-enforcement group, the Nevada Conference of Police and Sheriffs, endorsed the initiative, saying decriminalizing marijuana would free officers to concentrate more on "life-threatening and serious incidents."The initiative thrusts Nevada into the battle between the federal government and nine states over their efforts to legalize medical marijuana for chronically ill patients and into the center of an international debate over moves by Canada, Great Britain and other nations to approve the across-the-board use of marijuana.More than 60 years after the federal government passed the first law prohibiting its use, marijuana is the most debated and studied illegal drug in the nation. It also is the most widely used illicit substance--the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration says that 1 in 3 people age 12 and older have tried it at least once during their lifetime--despite billions spent by federal, state and local law-enforcement authorities to fight it."What this does is allow respectable people to use marijuana in their homes and bans it everyplace else," said Billy Rogers, spokesman for Nevadans for Responsible Law Enforcement, the measure's sponsor.Echoing the sentiment of the police and sheriffs group, Rogers said: "This will allow law enforcement to concentrate on more serious criminals: terrorists, rapists, murderers."Marijuana use peaked in the 1970s; nearly 30 million people 12 years old and older used it at least once in 1979, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. The number of users steadily dropped, to 26 million in 1985, then 16 million in 1992. The number of users then increased before stabilizing at about 19 million in 2000.Use declines with age Statistics show that marijuana is most popular among teens and young adults and that use declines sharply as people reach their 30s and 40s.Still, experts say, a sizable constituency of Baby Boomers smoke marijuana. One study shows that 1 in 40--or 2.6 percent--of 40-year-olds use marijuana on a regular basis.Marijuana advocates, attempting to counter the Cheech and Chong images of the 1970s, have launched campaigns to portray marijuana as mainstream. Earlier this year, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws plastered billboards all over New York City featuring this response from Mayor Michael Bloomberg when asked whether he ever had smoked pot: "You bet I did, and I enjoyed it.""We want equal rights with people who use alcohol and tobacco," said Mikki Morris, director of the Northern California-based Cannabis Consumers Campaign.Seeking to follow the example of the gay-rights movement, Morris posts on her Web site photos of doctors, lawyers, entrepreneurs and other professionals who openly describe their marijuana use. "To gain our rights, we have to come out of the closet and show that we're non-threatening to society," she said.Marijuana falls into the realm between liquor and hard drugs such as heroin and cocaine, experts say, creating inconsistent and often contradictory public policies.Most states have lowered marijuana possession charges from a felony, punishable by a prison sentence, to a misdemeanor or a finable offense. Yet in 2000, about 743,000 people nationwide were imprisoned for marijuana possession, the highest number ever.Despite intense efforts to crack down on illegal drugs in New York City, a sophisticated underground delivery system using bike-riding and limousine-driving couriers--mainly for exclusive Manhattan residences--proliferates."Rank-and-file officers often wink and look the other way when it comes to a segment of the [marijuana-]using population," said Ric Curtis, chairman of the anthropology department at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, who has studied the city's illicit drug trade extensively. "For [officers], it's not worth the time and effort to go after the more upscale people."Whether non-conformist Nevada is the right place for proponents to make their point about the mainstreaming of marijuana is an open question. Under the measure, a ban on public use of marijuana would remain, but police no longer would arrest users 21 and older who possess no more than 3 ounces of the drug and smoke in private.No organized effort has formed in Nevada to oppose the measure. But the initiative is facing harsh criticism from the federal government.Contradicting federal law If it passes, the measure would put Nevada, like California, at odds with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. The agency has raided and shut down medical marijuana dispensaries in California, equating them to drug traffickers. While the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled against the California medical marijuana law, state Supreme Court justices recently decided that users are protected from prosecution in state courts."This is the wrong message to send, the wrong program for Nevada," said DEA spokesman Will Glaspy. "We will respond to this in a way similar to the approach used for the cannabis buyers clubs. This is still against federal law."Other opponents say the Nevada measure is a well-orchestrated, well-financed attempt by proponents to achieve the eventual legalization of all drugs.Robert Maginnis, vice president for policy at the Family Research Council, asserts that arguments about compassionate use of medical marijuana are a smoke screen by proponents who want to liberalize laws to allow recreational use of pot.In fact, the Marijuana Policy Project, which was involved in many of the medical marijuana measures, launched the Nevada organization that is sponsoring the decriminalization initiative. Moreover, billionaire George Soros has provided millions of dollars to finance several organizations advocating medical marijuana and legalizing drugs."We've got to make sure we're not comparing age-old memories of Woodstock with what's going on today," Maginnis said."Today's cannabis is much more potent," he said. According to the DEA, the level of THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, has risen to 7 percent from less than 1 percent in 1974. "You'll get addicted much faster."Along with the quality, the price of marijuana varies widely across the country--from $400 to $5,000 a pound. The Nevada initiative would require the state to establish a price, a tax structure and a distribution system for marijuana. The issues of quality and purity are not addressed, but that is something that the state most likely would have to consider."We spell out that it couldn't be sold in places that allow gaming . . . and that the establishments would have to go through a licensing process," said Rogers of the initiative campaign."What the distribution system would look like is impossible to say."Newshawk: Nicholas Thimmesch - http://www.norml.org/Source: Chicago Tribune (IL)Author: V. Dion Haynes, Tribune National CorrespondentPublished: August 9, 2002Copyright: 2002 Chicago Tribune CompanyContact: ctc-TribLetter Tribune.comWebsite: http://www.chicagotribune.com/Related Articles & Web Sites:NRLEhttp://www.nrle.org/Marijuana Policy Projecthttp://www.mpp.org/MSNBC Transcripts: The Abrams Report’ http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread13688.shtmlWolf Blitzer Reports Transcripts: Legalize Pot?http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread13685.shtmlCrossfire Transcripts: Pot Legalization in Nevada http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread13684.shtmlMarijuana Ballot Issue: Police Back Legalization http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread13657.shtml
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Comment #2 posted by FoM on August 09, 2002 at 14:49:46 PT
Friendly Reminder: News Night with Aaron Brown
News Night with Aaron Brown10:00 p.m. ETMarijuana may soon be legal in Nevada. But who's backing a measure to soften the state's anti-pot laws?http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/aaron.brown/
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Comment #1 posted by Jose Melendez on August 09, 2002 at 13:18:58 PT
What if tobacco was illegal? 
from:http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/09/opinion/09ESZT.html
Hollywood's Responsibility for Smoking Deaths
By JOE ESZTERHASCLEVELAND — I've written 14 movies. My characters smoke in many of them, and they look cool and glamorous doing it. Smoking was an integral part of many of my screenplays because I was a militant smoker. It was part of a bad-boy image I'd cultivated for a long time — smoking, drinking, partying, rock 'n' roll. Smoking, I once believed, was every person's right. Efforts to stop it were politically correct, a Big Brother assault on personal freedoms. Secondhand smoke was a nonexistent problem invented by professional do-gooders. I put all these views into my scripts. In one of my movies, "Basic Instinct," smoking is part of a sexual subtext. Sharon Stone's character smokes; Michael Douglas's is trying to quit. She seduces him with literal and figurative smoke that she blows into his face. In the movie's most famous and controversial scene, she even has a cigarette in her hand. I'm sure the tobacco companies loved "Basic Instinct." One of them even launched a brand of "Basic" cigarettes not long after the movie became a worldwide hit, perhaps inspired by my cigarette-friendly work. My movie made a lot of money; so did their new cigarette. Remembering all this, I find it hard to forgive myself. I have been an accomplice to the murders of untold numbers of human beings. I am admitting this only because I have made a deal with God. Spare me, I said, and I will try to stop others from committing the same crimes I did. Eighteen months ago I was diagnosed with throat cancer, the result of a lifetime of smoking. I am alive but maimed. Much of my larynx is gone. I have some difficulty speaking; others have some difficulty understanding me. I no longer have the excruciating difficulty swallowing or breathing that I experienced in the first months after my surgery. I haven't smoked or drank for 18 months now, though I still take it day-to-day and pray for help. I believe in prayer and exercise. I have walked five miles a day for a year, without missing even one day. Quitting smoking and drinking has taught me the hardest lesson I've ever learned about my own weakness; it has also given me the greatest affection and empathy for those still addicted. I have spent some time in the past year and a half in cancer wards. I have seen people gasp for air as a suctioning device cleaned their tracheas. I have heard myself wheezing horribly, unable to catch my breath, as a nurse begged me to breathe. I have seen an 18-year-old with throat cancer who had never smoked a single cigarette in his life. (His mother was a chain smoker.) I have tried not to cry as my wife fitted the trachea tube that I had coughed out back into my throat. (Thankfully, I no longer need it.) I don't think smoking is every person's right anymore. I think smoking should be as illegal as heroin. I'm no longer such a bad boy. I go to church on Sunday. I'm desperate to see my four boys grow up. I want to do everything I can to undo the damage I have done with my own big-screen words and images. So I say to my colleagues in Hollywood: what we are doing by showing larger-than-life movie stars smoking onscreen is glamorizing smoking. What we are doing by glamorizing smoking is unconscionable. Hollywood films have long championed civil rights and gay rights and commonly call for an end to racism and intolerance. Hollywood films espouse a belief in goodness and redemption. Yet we are the advertising agency and sales force for an industry that kills nearly 10,000 people daily. A cigarette in the hands of a Hollywood star onscreen is a gun aimed at a 12- or 14-year-old. (I was 12 when I started to smoke, a geeky immigrant kid who wanted so very much to be cool.) The gun will go off when that kid is an adult. We in Hollywood know the gun will go off, yet we hide behind a smoke screen of phrases like "creative freedom" and "artistic expression." Those lofty words are lies designed, at best, to obscure laziness. I know. I have told those lies. The truth is that there are 1,000 better and more original ways to reveal a character's personality. Screenwriters know, too, that some movie stars are more likely to play a part if they can smoke — because they are so addicted to smoking that they have difficulty stopping even during the shooting of a scene. The screenwriter writing smoking scenes for the smoking star is part of a vicious and deadly circle. My hands are bloody; so are Hollywood's. My cancer has caused me to attempt to cleanse mine. I don't wish my fate upon anyone in Hollywood, but I beg that Hollywood stop imposing it upon millions of others. Joe Eszterhas is a screenwriter and the author of "American Rhapsody." 
Hollywood's Responsibility for Smoking Deaths
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