cannabisnews.com: Nevada Divided on Issue to Legalize Marijuana





Nevada Divided on Issue to Legalize Marijuana
Posted by CN Staff on October 27, 2002 at 22:09:48 PT
By Carol Rosenberg
Source: Miami Herald
Las Vegas - Wedding chapel minister William Merrell, 78, says he has never smoked marijuana and doesn't drink, either. But next month he will vote to legalize personal possession of the drug for adults.''I just don't like to see people put in jail for a couple of ounces of marijuana in their possession,'' Merrell said between performing quickie $100 weddings at the Say I Do Wedding Drive Thru on Las Vegas Boulevard. ``I say, let the cops use those man-hours finding some crooks.''
But his wife sees it differently. A driver high on dope fell asleep at the wheel during the summer and slammed his vehicle into a car at a downtown stoplight, killing a woman motorist. ''That pushed her to the other side,'' he says.In a nutshell, this is what divides Nevadans in the Nov. 5 election: whether to decriminalize the personal use of marijuana -- the most sweeping statewide measure after a series of Western states have bucked the federal government and legalized medical uses of marijuana.Polls have gone both ways.Known as Question 9, the Marijuana Initiative would allow adults 21 and older to legally possess and smoke three ounces of the drug or, advocates say, about 100 joints.Passage would not immediately allow pot smoking in ''Sin City.'' Under Nevada law, voters have to endorse state constitutional amendments twice, in this instance again in 2004.The proposed amendment instructs the Legislature to set up a system of licensing growers and dealers to peddle a product grown in Nevada and derive state taxes from it. A business school study has projected that state-supervised marijuana sales would raise $28 million in taxes, based on an estimated 75,000 adult users in Nevada.Sales to people under 21 would be punishable by a jail term. Driving under the influence would still be a crime.The Nevada amendment has become the latest example of the clash between local jurisdictions and the federal government on whether personal marijuana consumption is a worthy target of the war on drugs. FEDERAL SWEEP  In September, federal agents swept through a medical marijuana collective in Santa Cruz, Calif., uprooting plants and briefly detaining the couple farming them under California's Proposition 215 and a city ordinance allowing such farming.In the past six years, voters in nine states -- largely Western -- have legalized marijuana for medicinal purposes, prompting both Drug Enforcement Administration Director Asa Hutchinson and ''drug czar'' John Walters to campaign here on the dangers of the drug and the liabilities that such a law could bring through potential health-related lawsuits, similar to those against tobacco.Walters, who is head of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, has teamed up with local law-enforcement officials who argue that marijuana has a corrupting influence.But in a city that already thrives on everything from brothels and blackjack to strip shows, the initiative is also about Nevada's independent streak.''Nevada is the ultimate libertarian paradise,'' explains Ted Jelen, a political scientist at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas. ``You want to get married? Do it right now. You want to get divorced? Do it right now. You want to put a million dollars on a hand of cards? Do it right here. 'AWFUL' IDEA ``The whole idea that the government can regulate any kind of behavior is considered awful -- just does not compute. That's what Nevada's all about.''With perhaps one exception. Jelen says voters are expected to overwhelmingly adopt an initiative prohibiting the Legislature from enacting laws for same-sex marriage.And while the marijuana campaign boasts that it has garnered 4,000 local endorsements, it is not wholly a home-grown effort.The campaign director is Billy Rogers, a veteran Texas political campaigner who came to Nevada from the national Marijuana Policy Project, a lobby. Rogers projects that the group will have spent $1.5 million on the amendment by the time the vote is over.Failure in Nevada is possible, he concedes, but legalization is also ''inevitable'' as the Baby Boomers grow older.''Marijuana ain't cocaine, and it ain't heroin,'' Rogers says, arguing that the possession arrests of 750,000 Americans last year were part of a misplaced priority -- even in Nevada, where possession of less than an ounce is punishable by only a citation and a $650 fine. MEDICAL EXEMPTION In addition, Nevada already has a medical marijuana exemption, as do Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Oregon and Washington state -- all adopted since 1996. Licensing adult marijuana sales, Rogers and others argue, would mean that Nevadans who now use it medicinally would no longer have to go to illicit drug dealers for their fix, and that police and prosecutors could focus on violent crimes.Walters, however, and other opponents argue that marijuana is a gateway drug to other, more dangerous addictive pursuits and that approval of the measure would send the wrong signal to children.Moreover, opponents warn that legalization could lead to ''drug tourism'' in a city that has tried to polish its image with family-friendly shows and highbrow art exhibits.And, says Walters: ``It's still against federal law to cultivate and sell marijuana. That's not going to change.''Complete Title: Nevada Divided on Ballot Issue to Legalize Use of MarijuanaSource: Miami Herald (FL)Author: Carol Rosenberg Published: Sunday, October 27, 2002Copyright: 2002 The Miami HeraldContact: heralded herald.comWebsite: http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/ Related Articles & Web Sites: NRLEhttp://www.nrle.org/Marijuana Policy Projecthttp://www.mpp.org/News Articles - WAMM Raidhttp://freedomtoexhale.com/valc.htmThe New Politics of Pot http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread14574.shtmlNevada Should Back Question 9 http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread14539.shtml
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Comment #1 posted by pokesmotter on October 28, 2002 at 07:32:51 PT:
"thats not going to change"
oh but it is! walters only has so long before people start waking up. the people are speaking up throughout the country. i am anxious to see how the voting goes this Nov.
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