WILLIAM MERCER MCLEOD FOR TIME PRO-POT PARTY: Demonstrators in favor of legalization rally in Las Vegas

The New Politics of Pot
	Can it go legit? How the people who brought you medical marijuana have set their sights on lifting the ban for everyone
	By Joel Stein | Las Vegas

Posted Sunday, October 27, 2002; 10:31 a.m. EST
The drug czar is ready for pro wrestling. He already has the name, and now he's got the prefight talk down cold. In every speech he makes in Nevada, where Bush appointee John Walters has traveled to fight an initiative that would legalize marijuana, he calls out his three sworn enemies as if he were Tupac Shakur. The czar has a problem with billionaire philanthropists George Soros, Peter Lewis and John Sperling, who have bankrolled the pro-pot movement, and he wants everyone to know he's ready for battle. At an Elks lodge meeting in Las Vegas, he ticks off their names and says, "These people use ignorance and their overwhelming amount of money to influence the electorate. You don't hide behind money and refuse to talk and hire underlings and not stand up and speak for yourself," he says. By the end of a similar speech at a drug-treatment center in Reno, he says, "Let's stop hiding. I'm here. Where are you?" The czar is bringing it on.

Before the new czar was appointed in December, it was the government's preference not to address the legalizers. But the pro-pot movement has gained so much ground they can't be ignored as a fringe element. Americans, it turns out, aren't conflicted in their attitude toward marijuana. They want it illegal but not really enforced. A Time/CNN poll last week found that only 34% want pot to be totally legalized (the percentage has almost doubled since 1986). But a vast majority have become mellow about official loopholes: 80% think it's O.K. to dispense pot for medical purposes, and 72% think people caught with it for recreational use should get off with only a fine. That seeming paradox has left a huge opening for pro-pot people to exploit. Eight states allow medical marijuana, and a handful of states have reduced the sentences for pot smokers to almost nothing.

The midterm election Nov. 5 has lighted up the issue even more. While control of the House hangs in the balance and the race for the Senate is a dead heat, the political trend for marijuana is clear: support is gaining. The most interesting battles on the November ballot are over pot initiatives: to allow the city of San Francisco to grow and distribute medical marijuana, to replace jail with rehab in Ohio and decriminalize marijuana use in Arizona. Many of these proposals are relatively modest, but the pro-pot forces are also raising the stakes. In spite of the electorate's contentment with the paradox of loose enforcement, some particularly powerful people on both sides have taken extreme viewpoints in an effort to end the political stalemate and force Americans to choose. Either pot is not so bad and should be legal, or people should be arrested for smoking it. The battlefield for the showdown is Nevada, where Question 9 would allow adults to possess up to 3 oz. of pot for personal use. In fact, the state government would set up a legal market for buying and selling pot. To almost everyone's surprise, the race is too close to call.

While the pro-pot forces have pushed their agenda at the polls, opponents have tried to use legal muscle to fight back. After a Supreme Court decision last year reiterating that federal drug laws trumped state ones, the Drug Enforcement Administration sent federal agents to California to bust medical-marijuana growers, a move that tended to outrage California voters who had approved this use. In fact, as the Administration pushes harder against the pro-pot forces, pot supporters seem to gain ground.

Among the biggest pro-pot players, medical marijuana was actually kind of a ruse. Sure, there are sick people who really feel they need marijuana to numb pain, relieve the eye pressure of glaucoma, calm muscle spasms or get the munchies to help with AIDS wasting (see "Is Pot Good For You?"). But they are not the people who put the debate into high gear. A few years ago, the Drug Policy Alliance—an organization founded by billionaire philanthropist Soros, who wants to legalize marijuana and reform drug laws by replacing jail time with rehab—decided it would fund only those initiatives that could be won. So the group ran a bunch of polls to find out how America feels about the drug wars, and the reformers came up way short on everything but three policies: people preferred treatment over incarceration in some cases, people hated property forfeiture, and an overwhelming majority felt medical marijuana should be legal. So Soros & Co. set out to get medical-marijuana legislation. The fight has done quite well, especially when, to their surprise, the Federal Government took the bait and started arresting little old ladies and storming peaceful pot-growing cooperatives. In fact, the pro-pot people have done well enough that some of them feel it is time to drop the ruse and fight for full legalization. Plus, with Britain experimenting with a "seize and warn" policy instead of arresting pot smokers and Canada flirting with doing the same, the blunt-friendly were ready to take off the camouflage and fight. And where else to try this but in Nevada?

That's why the czar is in Vegas, sitting in a room at the Venetian Hotel guarded by U.S. marshals. The czar, a smart, likable, earnest man who believes he can help Americans by fighting the drug war, is derided by the opposition as "Bill Bennett's Mini-Me." Indeed, he worked for Bennett under Reagan in the Department of Education and then as Bennett's deputy drug czar in the first Bush Administration. When George W. appointed him, the President told the czar to watch the movie Traffic as a way to understand the problem. The czar, who told Time he has never smoked pot, believes marijuana to be not only a gateway drug but also incredibly detrimental in its own right—causing driving accidents, domestic violence, health risks and crippling addiction. He thinks the legalization argument is absurd, especially when proposed by libertarian Republicans who are so doctrinaire he finds them to be outside his party. "This is great talk at 2 a.m. in a dorm room, that all laws should be consistent. But the real world isn't consistent. It's ludicrous to say we have a great deal of problems from the use of alcohol so we should multiply that with marijuana," he says. It doesn't take long for him to get back to the three billionaires: "It's unprecedented, the amount of money put in by such a small amount of people over one issue."

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