Drug Warriors Crusade Against Reform Initiatives

By Daniel Forbes, AlterNet. Posted October 24, 2002.

On drug policy, the voting public has proven ready to lead spaniel-like politicians by the nose, voting for one liberalization measure after another. But government, state and local officials have begun a crusade to scuttle reform initiatives around the nation.

Three wealthy drug reform proponents have backed a string of successful state ballot initiatives across the nation. Focusing initially on medical marijuana measures out west, billionaires George Soros and Peter Lewis and multi-millionaire John Sperling have won 12 of 13 ballot measures since 1996. Their handiwork also includes Proposition 36, which mandates treatment rather than prison for low-level drug offenders and was passed overwhelmingly in California in 2000. Other activists have similarly outflanked the officials who lag behind public opinion, and the reform movement as a whole has won 17 of 19 ballot measures -- much to the chagrin of drug warriors.

Admitting to considerable surprise in 1996, Clinton drug czar Barry McCaffrey drew a line in the sand, in part by initiating the White House anti-drug media campaign. But all levels of government, from local district attorneys to governors and the new federal drug czar John P. Walters, have refined their counterattack on the drug reform movement.

The National Counter-Attack on Drug Reform

This year, the California-based Campaign for New Drug Policies, the main agency of the wealthy trio's reform ambitions, consciously set its sights on Republican-dominated states east of the Mississippi. It sought to put to vote Prop. 36-style treatment amendments in Florida, Ohio and Michigan. A cautious CNDP, which typically requires favorable poll ratings exceeding 60 percent before committing its resources to a reform inititative, proceeded with some confidence. But it has since run into a Republican-led buzzsaw (not that Democrats necessarily embrace reform more warmly), and only the Ohio measure ran the full gauntlet to make it to the ballot.

In Ohio, the measure is becoming a victim of outrageous ballot language promulgated by a Republican-led elections board. Its popularity is sinking badly in the polls, currently losing by 20 points. The loaded ballot language is part of the orchestrated, improper and possibly illegal months-long anti-initiative campaign being orchestrated by Ohio Governor Bob Taft. The Ohio effort has been so cutthroat and effective, CNDP political director Dave Fratello admitted, "If we lose, it's a road map to show how to beat us in subsequent states like Michigan and Florida."

Elsewhere, federal and state judges have stymied reform, in some cases by simply refusing to issue timely rulings. A Michigan appeals court blatantly let the clock run out on a Detroit medical marijuana measure, deigning to hold a hearing only long after the deadline for printing ballots had passed. In Florida, the state Supreme Court delayed holding a hearing for so long that the CNDP has decided not to gather any more signatures; it has 300,000 valid signatures in the bank should it return to the fray in 2004.

And in Washington, D.C., a medical marijuana effort was shot down when a federal appeals court tossed out a lower court ruling that stated, "There can be no doubt that the Barr Amendment restricts plaintiffs' First Amendment right to engage in political speech." The reference is to the rider -- introduced by Rep. Bob Barr (R-GA) -- now automatically attached to the federal D.C. appropriations bills that prevents Washington from spending a single dollar to enact any reduction of marijuana penalties. Alexei Silverman, an associate with Covington & Burling who worked on the case on behalf of the Marijuana Policy Project, said the appeals court basically avoided the First Amendment issues and agreed with the feds' assertions that the mechanical act of voting is part of the legislative process, not exercising the right to speech. Barr applauded the ruling, "which recognized the right and responsibility of Congress to protect citizens from dangerous, mind-altering narcotics."

Going solo, Peter Lewis has boosted the funding of a dynamic, cheeky upstart, the D.C.-based Marijuana Policy Project, which in years past has pursued reform largely in state legislatures. Now, in its first electoral battle (apart from its support for the disqualified D.C. effort), MPP has spent $1.7 million shooting for the moon in Nevada. It managed to qualify in an audaciously short time a perhaps quixotic effort to legalize the possession of up to three ounces of pot. Even if it passes this year and again in 2004 as Nevada requires, the measure calls for the state to establish legal distribution channels. And, no matter what statements drug czar John Walters may have made in Nevada regarding federal respect for states' rights, the feds aren't going to let that happen. This is the same administration that's been busting medical dispensaries this fall all over California, typically targeting the ones most above-board and publicly strident in asserting their rights.

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