If Initiative Drive Succeeds, Nevada May Emerge As Drug-War Battleground
by Rafael Tammariello

June 14, 1998 - Las Vegas Review-Journal - letters@lvrj.com

If the drive to force a medical-marijuana initiative onto Nevada's November ballot succeeds, and if voters approve it, don't expect the Las Vegas Valley's caliche to spawn thickets of autumn cannabis. And don't bogart your breath awaiting the ribbon-cutting for the Fremont Street Reefer-Buyers Club. This is Nevada, where constitutional amendments must meet with voter approval in two consecutive elections.

Because the medical marijuana initiative would alter the constitution, the Silver State wouldn't see legal cannabis until the millennium celebrations have given way to the re-release of "2001: A Space Odyssey" -- that is, assuming the pot medicalizers win every electoral battle and fend off any legal challenges between now and the November 2000 elections.

Tuesday at 5 p.m. looms the deadline for backers of the initiative to present their petitions to the secretary of state's office, which then has 25 days to verify that the requisite 46,764 John Hancocks have been gathered from registered voters residing in at least 13 of Nevada's 17 counties.

If the measure's boosters and their pollsters are right, the concept of legalized marijuana for sick people is so popular it will qualify for the ballot handily and -- like similar 1996 initiatives in California and Arizona -- meet with strong voter approval come Election Day '98. A potential hang-up to the petition drive is that it was slow out of the blocks, in part because of a ruling by the Nevada attorney general -- later neutered in District Court -- that no individual could contribute more than $5,000 to an initiative campaign. And, if anything's driving the medicalization initiatives in Nevada and other states, it's cash from very wealthy men who seek to end the war on drugs or radically modify it.

If the Nevada marijuana medicalization petition qualifies for the November ballot, expect fierce opposition to it from Nevada law enforcement. But so far, no group has attempted to thwart the petition drive itself. The movement does, however, have plenty of philosophical and financial support from out-of-state drug-war opponents, notably billionaire philanthropist George Soros of New York; wealthy University of Phoenix founder John Sperling of Arizona; and Peter Lewis, an Ohio insurance magnate.

Donations from these individuals and the organizations through which their money is funneled animate the Nevada medical marijuana petition drive, which is expected to cost about $150,000. "We're producing (signatures) at a rate of several thousand a day statewide -- about 15,000 a week. We need 46,000 but we are shooting for 75,000," said Dave Fratello, communications director and treasurer of Americans for Medical Rights, the Santa Monica, Calif.-based group that organized the 1998 marijuana petition drives in Nevada and several other states.

Fratello is also the day-to-day coordinator for those campaigns. AMR is the main conduit for cash (from Soros and others) to initiatives aimed at legalizing marijuana for therapeutic use in Nevada, Alaska, Washington, Oregon, Colorado, Maine and the District of Columbia.

AMR has purchased the services of Progressive Campaigns Inc. (also of Santa Monica), a savvy outfit with a strong track record and a reputation for spotting efforts to sabotage petitions by loading them up with duplictae names and invalid signatures. Progressive Campaigns was instrumental in qualifying California's Prop 215. Angelo Paparella, president of Progressive Campaigns, said Wednesday the Nevada initiative has an "85 percent to 90 percent" chance of qualifying for the ballot, and that similar campaigns in Colorado, Oregon and Washington "look very good." (Progressive Campaigns got California's Prop 215 qualified.)

Does it matter to Nevadans that the $150,000 or so being spent on the Silver State marijuana petition is being financed and coordinated almost entirely by outsiders? Does it matter to the electorate that most of the signature-gatherers -- about 70 of them, who must be registered Nevada voters -- are piece-work professionals, earning $60 to $80 a day? Does it matter that the medical pot campaign is bankrolled by out-of-state millionaires?

"The opponents make a big deal about it," said Fratello, "but I'm not sure how much it resonates among voters. It is only with their (Soros' and others') support that we can get this issue before voters. So (voters) tend to appreciate the fact that it's before them and not worry so much about how it got there."

Signing a petition to force the measure onto the November ballot, Fratello added, does not imply an endorsement of the law itself. Gov. Bob Miller, a former prosecutor, declined to comment directly on the initiative drive. His spokesman Richard Urey said Miller "has nothing to say except to restate his core beliefs -- that any initiative that makes (drugs) more available sends a wrong message to youth" and that marijuana medicalization tends to undermine educational programs aimed at combatting drug use.

Janine Hansen, the Sparks-based president of the conservative, 3,000-member Nevada Eagle Forum, said her group has taken no stance on the petition drive -- but it will formulate a position if the measure qualifies for the ballot. "We have serious concerns about illegal drugs and this might be one avenue to lessen that -- one avenue to break down the barriers to illegal drugs," Ms. Hansen said.

As for Attorney General Frankie Sue del Papa, her spokesman Bob Harmon said the state's chief law enforcement officer wants "to wait to see if it does qualify and assess it at that time to see what we need to do."

But fierce opposition to the measure is certain to arise from Nevada law enforcement, particularly from officers on the front lines of the drug war. Metro Lt. Steve Gammell, who serves as vice president of the Nevada Narcotics Officers Association, vehemently opposes medicalization of pot and sees the campaign as an attempt to cloak the drive for drug legalization in the rhetoric of medicalization. "My opinion is I have zero tolerance for any unlawful drugs," Gammell said. Marijuana is, "far and away the most abused drug we have."

In the 15 months between January 1997 and March of 1998, Metro's Narcotics Section alone seized 8,051 pounds of narcotics, including 5,165 pounds of marijuana. Dave Fratello, of AMR, contends one reason Nevada was targeted for a medicalization drive was that the state marijuana "law is so harsh."

That was true when possession of even one seed of dope was treated as a Class E felony and could earn the offender a minimum one year and a maximum of four years in state prison (plus a $5,000 fine). But those days are long gone. Indeed, said Gammell, small-time possession cases -- a joint or two found on a first-time offender, for example -- are for all practical purposes never prosecuted in Nevada. Nevada Department of Prisons spokesman Glen Whorton backs up that assertion, saying simple possession -- now handled through drug courts or probation -- lands nobody in the state slammer these days. Said Whorton, "A guy has to work at it to come to prison in that regard."

Gammell said Nevada -- where one has to possess more than 100 pounds of marijuana before he can be hit with even the lowest-level trafficking penalties and must possess more than five tons before he's treated as a mid-level trafficker -- needs much tougher drug laws, not softer ones. Legalizing marijuana for medical purposes, he argued, would communicate a malignant message to young people who have been taught at school, at home and through the DARE program that illegal drugs are evil and dangerous. "It's counterproductive to every household -- to every household that teaches children not to use drugs. Š It tells kids you're talking out of both sides of your mouth." Plus, said Gammell, research by the California Narcotics Officers Association turned up plenty of links between drug-legalization groups such as NORML (National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws) and marijuana medicalization outfits such as Americans for Medical Rights.

"That's really the point behind this: To legitimize marijuana; and full legalization would be the next goal. Š There is very much of an underlying motive here," Gammell said. Legalization groups, he contends, don't really care about sick people but rather use them as props in the propaganda war against drug prohibition. "It's just a scam to legalize dope -- that's all it is," he said.

Undermining the drug war and ending drug prohibition are, indeed, the goals of some in the marijuana medicalization movement, and they make no secret about it. Rob Stewart, spokesman for the Drug Policy Foundation -- a leading Washington-based think tank on drug-legalization and medicalization issues (also launched with the help of Soros' money) -- said some on the foundation's staff support outright legalization of prohibited drugs while others argue that medicalization is the way to go, especially because public opinion polls show strong support for medical marijuana but heavy opposition to legalization.

Stewart also conceded that some of the "medicalizers" see Nevada-type initiatives as "a good first step toward decriminalization." Of the successful marijuana drives in California and Arizona, Stewart said: "I think its (the drug war's) image as a black and white political issue is falling apart." Is it possible that the drug war, as a result of state-by-state de-escalation, will simply and suddenly collapse like communism? "The prediction is right," Stewart said. "The time frame is the impossible part."

Lawrence Matheis, executive director of the Nevada Medical Association, said his group's general position on the marijuana issue is (1) it opposes recreational use of the drug, and (2) strongly encourages the federal Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health to conduct scientific studies on the possible medical uses of the drug.

He stresses the need for clinical tests to determine marijuana's efficacy in treating maladies. If the NMA participates in the discussion over medicalization, its role will be to provide good information. "Our concern," said Matheis, "is that the government has laws based on whether something is popular or unpopular.

Now, it is less a matter of science and more a matter of personal opinions. Š It's a slippery slope when government says what can be offered or supplied and what cannot be" based on politics rather than science. Matheis questioned the very concept of using the political process to settle a scientific argument.

He asked: "Is this really a question of finding a medical excuse for legalizing marijuana use? Is this a freedom issue? If it's really about freedom to use, that should be confronted head-on. (The medicalization movement) is not largely being driven by physicians. Š It's driven from the demand side."

>From a marketing point of view, Matheis said, it makes sense for marijuana legalizers to frame the debate as a medical issue if they lack popular support for outright legalization. The problem with addressing the marijuana question through the initiative process, he said, is that "it forces a medical conclusion" in a field where there is no scientific consensus. "It either has to be studied more or we have to admit that we are really trying to decriminalize the possession and use of a substance," Matheis said.

Some strict libertarian intellectuals, such as Thomas Szasz, professor emeritus of psychiatry at the State University of New York in Syracuse, actually oppose both the drug war and the medicalization of illegal drugs on the grounds that individuals have an absolute right to ingest whatever chemicals they want -- without interference from government, cops or doctors who, he contends, have forged "a satanic pact with the state." Szasz wrote: "The advocates of medical marijuana have embraced a tactic that retards the repeal of drug prohibition and reinforces the legitimacy of prevailing drug policies.

Instead of steadfastly maintaining that the war on drugs is an intrinsically evil enterprise, the reformers propose replacing legal sanctions with medical tutelage, a principle destined to further expand the medical control of everyday behavior." Szasz said doctors who stand between adults and the drugs they need -- or simply want -are no more than policemen in white coats. Public statements such as those -- advocating full-blown legalization for any use whatsoever -are what got Dennis Peron, the originator of the California initiative, blackballed by the AMR, Fratello said.

Although there are legalizers within the ranks of the AMR, the group's stated goal is to move marijuana from the Drug Enforcement Administration's Schedule 1 to Schedule 2. Schedule 1 drugs, which include marijuana, heroin and LSD, are illegal in the United States (except for highly restricted research purposes) because they are deemed to have no accepted medicinal use and possess a high potential for abuse.

Federal law prohibits doctors from prescribing Schedule 1 drugs, and their possession and sale can net heavy prison sentences. Schedule 2 drugs, on the other hand -- while they can be addictive in the extreme -- are legal, medically useful, and can be prescribed. Schedule 2 drugs include morphine, cocaine and dilaudid (a painkiller several times more potent than morphine).

Also included on Schedule 2 is a drug whose brand name is Marinol, which contains delta-9-THC, the compound in marijuana that produces a high and is used (although rarely) in treating nausea and vomiting associated with cancer chemotherapy. Many advocates of medical pot (in smokable form) contend Marinol is so potent it alters consciousness and renders patients far more "stoned" than smoked marijuana.

The Physicians' Desk Reference, the doctor's "drug bible," warns that Marinol can produce panic, paranoia, hallucinations and other nasty side effects. Peter Barcus, chief executive officer of Nathan Adelson Hospice in Las Vegas, which cares for terminally ill patients, said Marinol, with its potential side effects, is very seldom requested by or prescribed for hospice patients -- and that requests from dying patients for smokable marijuana are also very rare.

Doctors, he said, already have access to a wide a range of powerful analgesics, such as morphine, to treat caner pain. As to the medical marijuana initiative, Barcus said, "I don't think it's an urgent, burning issue that the hospice industry is clamoring to have passed."

Don Campbell, the Las Vegas lawyer who successfully challenged the attorney general's ruling that campaign contributions to initiative drives be limited to $5,000, and who helped draft the language of the Nevada marijuana initiative, said, "I've always thought that having marijuana in Schedule 1 was insane -- that marijuana was in the same schedule as heroin was goofy." Campbell, who served as chief of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force for Nevada from 1981 to 1986, said he personally believes marijuana belongs on Schedule 4, along with low-level prescription drugs such as Valium and Darvon.

While Campbell sees eventual medicalization of marijuana is "a certainty," he added: "Given my experience with the federal government, I don't think the government is going to go gently into the night on this." Indeed, top federal and state officials campaigned mightily to defeat the Arizona and California pot petitions and intensified the fight even after voters had spoken.

U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno threatened to yank the prescription powers of doctors who recommended pot, thus ruining their careers; national Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey condemned the initiatives as frauds -- as "stalking horse(s) for legalization" and called Prop 215 "a cruel hoax that sounds more like something out of a Cheech and Chong show." Former Presidents George Bush, Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford condemned the measures.

Several state and federal officials insinuated that California and Arizona voters were too stupid to realize what they had just done at the ballot box. Notably silent in the cacophony following the victories of Props 200 and 215 was President William Jefferson ("I didn't inhale") Clinton. Despite the rhetorical artillery barrage from D.C., Arizonans passed Prop 200 with 65 percent of the vote; in California, Prop 215 won with 56 percent. But the Arizona Legislature neutralized the law by requiring the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to approve any drug before it could be recommended by Arizona doctors. (The FDA doesn't recognize Schedule 1 drugs as useful for anything.) And while a handful of cannabis clubs, which fill pot "prescriptions" for patients, still operate in California, others have been shut down through various legalistic mechanisms employed by federal and state drug warriors.

The AMR and other proponents of medical pot learned from their mistakes in Arizona and California. The Nevada initiative language is designed to short-circuit interference from federal and state authorities and addresses other issues that came to light in 1996:

-- The Nevada initiative would amend the state constitution, making it difficult or impossible for the Legislature to nullify or weaken it.

-- The Nevada measure would allow a patient afflicted with certain, specified diseases to use marijuana "upon advice of his physician," meaning doctors would not risk having their prescription privileges yanked.

-- Unlike the California law, which allows patients to use marijuana "for anyŠ illness for which marijuana provides relief"

-- an open-ended provision that could mean pot for boredom or backache

-- the Nevada law would permit cannabis use only to treat symptoms of specific diseases such as cancer, AIDS and glaucoma. (The Legislature could add to the list.) -- Unlike the Arizona law, the Nevada version would legalize for medical uses only cannabis

-- not heroin, LSD or other Schedule 1 drugs.

-- Unlike either the Arizona or California law, the Nevada constitutional amendment specifies that medical pot cannot be used in public. (Even if you're an AIDS patient, no firing up a bong at Wet 'n' Wild.)

-- The Nevada law, unlike its California counterpart, contains strict provisions for medical use by minors (written authorization by a doctor; parental consent and parental control of the acquisition and use of the plant).

-- The Nevada law also sets up an official registry of patients and their attendants authorized to posssess marijuana. Police -- but nobody else

-- would have access to the list if a question of legal possession arose.

-- In Nevada, it will be the job of the Legislature to authorize methods by which eligible patients can be supplied with marijuana (perhaps by licensing private pot farms, allowing counties to sell permits as they do for rural brothels, or distributing pot confiscated from illegal traffickers).

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