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Suetaz

Marijuana legalization group tries a new strategy

Pro-pot side offers 'professional' ads, well-chosen speakers

By TATABOLINE BRANT | Anchorage Daily News | September 23, 2004

A group calling itself Yes on 2 has begun campaigning in earnest for a November ballot measure to legalize and regulate Marijuana in Alaska and has a strategy different from what voters saw for a similar, unsuccessful initiative in 2000.

This time around, organizers are asking less of voters in an attempt to make the measure more appealing in the Nov. 2 election. They also have enlisted a more carefully selected group of spokespeople to help make their pitch, including a biomedical professor, a former high-ranking state corrections officer and a prominent Republican Party official.

The statewide campaign, which includes television and radio spots and a push to get supporters registered to vote by the Oct. 3 deadline, has some opponents worried.

"The legalizers have done a good job this time," said former U.S. Attorney Wev Shea, who backed a 1990 initiative to criminalize pot in Alaska and was also a key spokesman against legalization in 2000. "Have you seen the commercials? ... They're really professional."

There does not appear to be any organized opposition to Ballot Measure 2, another worry for initiative foes. "I'm very concerned," said Shea, who called on federal and state prosecutors and Alaska politicians to take a strong stand on the issue.

Shea said in his years in law enforcement he spoke with several junkies who told him "it all starts with Marijuana or alcohol."

[Suetaznote: Of course it starts with Marijuana or alcohol! It's the person using drugs that chooses to use them. The drugs don't force people to take them. If Marijuana or alcohol was that addictive that it drove us to use other drugs, we wouldn't have such a thing as 'social drinking' and no one would be able to use drugs in moderation.

It's good to know the opposition is scared. That means the activists in Alaska are doing a good job. I hope they succeed in this.]

U.S. Attorney for Alaska Tim Burgess and state Attorney General Greg Renkes both said in interviews Tuesday that laws forbid them from using their positions to tell people how to vote. Both did say, however, that they believe Marijuana is dangerous.

Gov. Frank Murkowski also by law cannot campaign against Ballot Measure 2. His personal feeling, according to a spokeswoman, is that legalizing Marijuana could encourage use and abuse of the drug, which has damaging consequences to children and families.

"He is absolutely against it," said Murkowski's press secretary, Becky Hultberg.

Alaska has gone back and forth on its Marijuana laws over the last three decades.

In 1975, the landmark case Ravin vs. State made it legal for adult Alaskans to possess a small amount of Marijuana in their homes for personal use. But in 1990 voters criminalized all amounts of pot.

That initiative appeared to kill Ravin. But last year, the Alaska Court of Appeals weighed in, saying that wasn't so. The Ravin ruling was based on privacy rights guaranteed in the Alaska Constitution, the appellate court said, which can't be taken away by voters or legislators. The Alaska Supreme Court earlier this month let that ruling stand by refusing to review the case.

The first big push to legalize all amounts of Marijuana statewide came in 2000. Proponents wanted the drug to be legal for those 18 and older and also wanted the government to set free some jail inmates convicted of Marijuana crimes and set up a commission to consider reparations for them. Sixty percent of voters turned the initiative down.

Shea said it was easy debating that measure. "It was just gross overreaching" on the part of legalization backers, he said.

This year's initiative drops the amnesty and reparations ideas and also increases the legal age of pot use to 21. It also allows for government regulation of Marijuana similar to tobacco or alcohol and for laws limiting use in public and to protect public safety, such as forbidding people to drive under the drug's influence. The measure also allows for taxation of Marijuana.

"There's a little more common sense in the approach this time," said Republican Moderate Party founder Ray Metcalfe, who supports the measure.

The 2000 campaign, which had several groups behind it, also lacked a unified front, said Yes on 2 treasurer Ken Jacobus, who last year stepped down as attorney for the Republican Party of Alaska in an amicable split after he said his involvement in preparing the Marijuana initiative and other issues made him "too much of a lightning rod."

Jacobus said the campaign for the 2000 initiative "was worse than unorganized. They were fighting with each other."

The current campaign has some new faces, the most visible of whom is the paid Yes on 2 spokesman, Bill Parker, a former legislator and deputy commissioner of corrections in Alaska from 1995 until his retirement in 2002.

Parker said in a recent interview that Alaskans should vote for Ballot Measure 2 because it would protect individual privacy rights, stop the government from wasting taxpayer dollars to fight Marijuana and regulate the drug in a way that will make it harder for kids to get but easier for adults to obtain legally. Drug dealers don't discriminate between children and adults by asking for an ID, Parker said.

At the Yes on 2 campaign kickoff last Thursday evening, in a loft-type office on Northern Lights Boulevard, Parker seemed confident the measure would pass.

"We are going to change the laws in this state on Marijuana," he declared to a crowd of about 200 supporters who had gathered for the party, which featured food, drinks and a drum circle.

Jacobus said one problem with state law as it stands now is that there is no way for residents -- including medical Marijuana patients -- to legally obtain Marijuana. Ballot Measure 2 would take care of that by regulating the drug, he said. "Kids should not be able to get it anywhere."

Renkes said the notion that making Alaska's drug laws more permissive would somehow help better control Marijuana use just doesn't ring true. "There's no data to prove that," he said.

Jennifer de Vallance, a spokeswoman for the Office of National Drug Control Policy, agreed. She said alcohol is regulated and kids still get their hands on it. "It doesn't make sense that making this legal would hamper access," she said. "If anything, it sends a mixed message to kids that it's OK."

Jacobus said for him Ballot Measure 2 is all about individual rights. "I don't smoke Marijuana," he said. "I don't think it's good for you. But I don't drink either." If people want to use those substances, that should be their business, not the government's, he said.

Dr. Tim Hinterberger, an assistant professor for the biomedical program at the University of Alaska Anchorage and a sponsor of Ballot Measure 2, said Marijuana is widely recognized as being far less toxic than substances such as cocaine or alcohol. He said he has never heard of a case where someone died from a pot overdose. In terms of addictiveness, pot is more on par with caffeine, he said.

Renkes challenged that assertion too, saying pot is addictive and mind-altering and can lead to worse drugs. He called substance abuse "the most serious social issue facing the state," noting that many crimes, injuries, deaths, as well as about 87 percent of incarcerations in Alaska are related to alcohol and drug abuse.

Alaska spends more money per capita on drug prevention and treatment than any other state in country, Renkes said. "This is a problem that we all share," he said. "I'm offended by Outside money and Outside groups coming here and thinking that they can easily impact our laws."

Yes on 2 is funded by individual donations and contributions from two main groups: Alaskans For Marijuana Regulation and Control, which gets most of its funding from the Washington, D.C.-based Marijuana Policy Project, and Alaska Rights and Revenues, which gets its funding from 800 Alaska donors and an Outside group called The Foundation for Constitutional Protection, according to each group's treasurer.

David Finkelstein, treasurer of Alaskans for Marijuana Regulation and Control, said he expected Yes on 2 to spend "hundreds of thousands" of dollars on its campaign.

Which is yet another worry for initiative opponents. "That's a frustrating part of the drug legalization movement," de Vallance said. "There is no well-funded political movement to keep our society safe."

No clear picture on how the state would go about regulating Marijuana has emerged. Both sides do agree on one point, however: Even if the initiative passes, Marijuana would still be illegal in Alaska under federal law.

Daily News reporter Tataboline Brant can be reached at tbrant@adn.com or 257-4321.

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PotShot

That, right there, is the bottom line. It's not a war against drugs, its a war against personal freedom.

That made me feel warm and fuzzy inside, and it wasnt just good bud. I wonder how many politicians are going to answer Shea's call?

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Alistero

So if this passes, Alaska will be the first U.S state to legalize? also if a cannabis cafe method is adopted, would we see alot of federal raids? just a thought.

StonedOne420

Got them running scared!

cassiusclay

What's uncle sam gonna do? Start a war on Alaska?

 

Suetaz

Posted by Alistero:
Yes, Alaska will be the first state to legalize. This legalization is for personal use in the home and it's not likely that cafe's will start popping up. Possibly in the larger cities, there might be some, but a lot of Alaska is so sparsely populated, it wouldn't be worth the expense of opening a cafe. I guess we'll have to wait and see...

The Feds in Alaska may still raid large growers, but I would think it all depends on the attitude of the Feds in Alaska and how much pressure is put on them by the drug czar to make busts.

Suetaz

If the voters plant it, will it grow?

Pot advocates are back with an initiative to legalize dope in Alaska, and it's not as half-baked as it was four years ago.

By Amanda Coyne | The Anchorage Press | Sept. 30, 2004

Had he been invited to a recent kickoff party for the Proposition 2 initiative to legalize Marijuana, even Wev Shea - former U.S. Attorney for Alaska and notorious anti drug-crusader - wouldn't have felt too out of place. Sure, there were the usual suspects - some dread-locked bongo drummers, the occasional tie-dye-clad college student, a girl wearing a pot garland and a spacey smile - the dopers, as Shea is fond of calling them.

But probing deeper into the crowd, as well as inside the circles behind the Say Yes on 2 campaign to legalize pot, Shea would have seen many people of his ilk: Ken Jacobus, former lawyer of the Alaska Republican Party; Ray Metcalfe, founder of the Alaska Republican Moderate Party; Dr. Tim Hinterberger, an associate professor at the University of Alaska Anchorage's biomedical program; Bill Parker, former commissioner of the Alaska Department of Corrections; as well as more than a few motherly types who actually looked like motherly types.

When Parker gave a speech, he said, “I don't even recognize myself.” Everyone laughed.

This “dream team” of pot advocates, as some have called it, is a far cry from the people who promoted a similar initiative on the 2000 ballot, a radical proposal that called for massive reforms, including granting amnesty and possible restitution to those serving time for pot crimes.

That initiative didn't pass, but neither did it fail miserably. Forty-one percent of the voters approved it.

Some who voted against it said they want pot legal but didn't think convicted dealers should be freed from jail. Others said they didn't vote in favor of the 2000 initiative because it would have allowed anybody above the age of 18 to smoke dope, rather than making the legal age 21.

Now, four years wiser, the pot advocates are back. They look better than they did in 2000, and they have done away with words like “amnesty” and “restitution.” They've also set the age limit at 21. But the objective is the same. Voters will be asked to approve the legal sale, consumption and possession of Marijuana in Alaska. The idea, supporters say, is to allow the regulation of Marijuana, just like the government regulates tobacco and alcohol.

It's impossible to tell where Proposition 2 stands with voters. As of Tuesday, September 28, there hadn't been an official poll done on it. Critics like Wev Shea have been slow to respond to the initiative; although he said he recently spoke to officials at the national drug czar's office, and they are “on it.” The White House has been known to come in during the last two weeks of state pot legalization campaigns and swarm the airwaves with anti-drug commercials.

But organizers of the Yes on 2 campaign say they're ready for the fight. They claim to have some big financing behind them, including from the Marijuana Policy Project, a national pro-pot group, which has paid for slick TV commercials that talk about legalizing and regulating pot. They've also got that dream team, some of whom are advocating the cause on radio talk shows, saying that prohibition has only made it easier for kids to get Marijuana. The pot advocates are talking about the government taxing Marijuana sales. They say this could free up police to respond to more pressing issues, like Anchorage's high rate of sexual assault. As it is now, Marijuana arrests account for two-thirds of all drug arrests in Alaska, according to the FBI's Uniform Crime Report.

But what the Yes on 2 campaign doesn't have yet are answers to some niggling questions. If the initiative passes, Alaska will become the only state where it's legal to smoke, buy and sell pot. How would it work? How would the state regulate Marijuana? How would the Republican-dominated Legislature react?

And perhaps the biggest question, how would the federal government respond?

In 2000, Alaska Libertarian Al Anders dusted off a 1993 pot initiative that had never made it on the ballot, got the required signatures, and ran around the state gathering support. His people were everywhere: on downtown street corners, in the Dimond Mall parking lot, outside Moose's Tooth. From the way they were dressed and their general comportment, it didn't take a second look to figure out what they were fighting for.

Not only did Anders' crew look like pot heads, most were pot heads. The sweet smell of Mary Jane permeated the campaign headquarters in Spenard, and getting baked was almost a prerequisite at their rallies.

To make matters worse, Anders, a usually astute man, was saying things in debates like, “People drive better stoned than sober,” and “Let's end the war and bring the POWs home.”

“It was a mess,” said Linda Ronan, a coordinator who joined the Yes on 2 campaign on the condition that it wouldn't be run like it was in 2000. “We've taken great pains to make sure that it's not like that this time.”

Not only did the 2000 initiative fail, but it also turned pot into a counter-culture debate, which made some in the national Marijuana movement shudder. They want average Americans to think pot smokers are like anybody, just regular, law-abiding citizens. Which is why Keith Stroup, director of the National Organization of Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), flew to Alaska during the 2000 campaign and tried to convince Anders and his group to drop the initiative. Frustrated by what he saw, Stroup threw up his hands and left.

Four years later, the campaign has a more respectable face. The initiative itself is also different. They've gotten rid of the amnesty clause and they've raised the legal age to 21. Here' s how Proposition 2 will read on the November 2 ballot:

This bill would remove civil and criminal penalties under state law for persons 21 years or older who grow, sell, or give away Marijuana or hemp products. State or local governments could not require a permit or license for personal cultivation or distribution of Marijuana, but could regulate Marijuana like alcohol or tobacco. It removes existing state restrictions on prescription of Marijuana by doctors for all patients, including children. It allows for laws limiting Marijuana use in public and to protect public safety.

In Nevada recently, a similar initiative (which won't appear on that state's ballot because of signature snafus), resembled Proposition 2, but it was much more detailed and less permissive. The Nevada initiative would have limited possession to an ounce per person. It would have directed the Nevada Legislature to establish licensing for the distribution of pot, including specific punishments for those who didn't obey the law. And it called for spending money raised from taxing weed on treatment centers and substance abuse education in schools.

Proposition 2 in Alaska is long on the definition of hemp, but short on details. The most direct passage in the text states: “Nothing in this bill prevents the regulation of hemp intoxicating products in a manner similar to alcohol or tobacco.”

David Finkelstein, a Prop. 2 organizer and a former state representative, defends the initiative. He believes that when initiatives get too detailed, they become unfair. “People just vote on concepts anyway,” he said. Besides, he said, his four terms in the Legislature taught him that no matter how detailed the initiative, lawmakers muck with it anyway.

In the case of Proposition 2, Finkelstein said, lawmakers could water it down to such a point that it wouldn't look much different than current pot laws in Alaska.



Alaska has a long, tangled history with weed. One chapter played out this past month when the Alaska Supreme Court reaffirmed Ravin v. State - the famous 1975 case that allows Alaskans to legally possess up to four ounces of dope in their homes.

Attorney General Gregg Renkes was upset that the court chose not to review the case. He and Governor Frank Murkowski are looking for a legislative “fix” to close the loophole in letting Alaskans smoke pot in their homes. But when Renkes is asked what he or the state would do if voters pass Proposition 2, he says “there will be nothing lawmakers could do.”

“If it's the law, it's the law,” Renkes said. “There will be no local control. It will be a legal mess.”

But it's not like Proposition 2 doesn't give the state options. The initiative says the state may regulate pot, even tax it. It would be up to lawmakers to decide how the regulation would work.

Regulation is one thing, but Larry Persily, a special assistant at the Alaska Department of Revenue, says that anybody who thinks Alaska can tax Marijuana is “smoking too much of it.”

“Why would anybody file a (tax) return?” Persily asked. “If, perhaps, Marijuana became legal federally, then it would be a potentially huge source of income. But we've got a president now who won't even support stem cell research.”

Indeed, how could a state tax a drug the federal government has declared evil?

Marijuana would remain illegal under federal law if voters passed Proposition 2 because federal law almost always trumps state law when the two conflict. And by the way, the Ravin decision means nothing to the feds.

But it might not be the best PR move to arrest someone for breaking a federal law that's legal under state law. Bill Satterburg is a Fairbanks lawyer who argued the recent case that affirmed the Ravin decision. If Proposition 2 passes, he predicts a showdown between the feds and the state, perhaps not much different than in California during the late 1990s, when voters legalized pot for medicinal use.

Tim Burgess, U.S. Attorney for Alaska, won't say what he'd do if Proposition 2 becomes law, but said he does have the power to put his foot down. Burgess, Renkes and John Novak, state chief assistant District Attorney, go to great pains to say the government isn't in the business of busting people for simple possession. The government is going after dealers, they say.

But numbers from the FBI Uniform Crime Reports belie those statements. From 1998 to 2002, there were 5,695 Marijuana arrests in Alaska. Of those arrests, only 599 were for selling and growing pot. In other words, about 90 percent of the arrests were for possession only.

Still, at a time when pot advocates nationwide are making legalization inroads through the medical Marijuana fight, would this kind of battle be good for the movement?

“You've (Alaska) already got the best Marijuana laws in the country,” said Keith Stroup, of NORML. “Why push it? It's still a crime in 38 states to possess a small amount of Marijuana. Why not use some of that money and energy to change those laws down here?”

But other groups are very supportive and excited. At any given time, 700,000 people are in prison for pot nationwide. An estimated 96 million people say they've tried it at least once. Pro-pot people say that the country's Marijuana policy isn't working. They believe it's time to try something new. And if Alaska breaks new trail, perhaps other states will follow with their own laws.

In California, for example, selling and buying Marijuana for medical use is still illegal under federal law. Although the feds have busted some grow operations, cities across California have passed laws taxing and regulating pot. And they didn't have any master plan when they started.

“Given that prohibition has been such a colossal failure, and eighty percent of kids say they can get Marijuana if they want it, why not give something else a try?” said Bruce Mirken of the Marijuana Policy Project. “Regulation gives society some control. In tobacco stores, you see signs that say 'We ID.' You ever see a drug dealer carrying around those kind of signs?”

At a Yes on 2 organizational meeting in the group's new offices on Northern Lights Boulevard, about 15 people sat in a circle, watching Ray Metcalfe read from a commercial script:

“Over thirty-five years ago, I moved to Alaska in search of the new freedom of the last frontier. A place where people don't tell you how to live, how to act and what to think. Personally I don't care for Marijuana. But I recognize that if I want to keep on enjoying the freedoms of the last frontier, it's important for me to stand shoulder to shoulder with my fellow Alaskans and say no when brother government will be knocking…”E”

Everybody loved Metcalfe's script, especially compared to the current commercial airing on television, produced by the Marijuana Policy Project. The current ad, which shows what looks like young adults smoking pot, seems dark, a little less than uplifting. Metcalfe's ad would take the issue out of the realm of the pot smoker, tugging on the heartstrings of the anti-government sentiment that runs far and deep in Alaska.

After Metcalfe presented his ad, an organizer began a brainstorming session with the group. Michelle Wilson said she wanted to look at questions people have about Proposition 2.

How would pot be taxed, regulated, distributed? How would the new state law conflict with existing federal law?

A few people chimed in, offering possible scenarios. But Wilson wasn't looking for answers. She just wanted to pose the inevitable questions, to anticipate how people might react.

The answers will come soon enough. “If this passes,” Wilson said, “then the work will really begin.”

Contact Amanda Coyne at amanda@anchoragepress.com or 644-5407.