Bipartisan Compromise Reached on Anti-Drug Advertising

Thursday, June 5, 2003

by Larry Margasak
Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) - Republicans and Democrats agreed Thursday that the Bush administration shouldn't buy advertising to oppose state and local campaigns aimed at easing marijuana penalties.

The agreement became part of legislation that would keep the White House anti-drug office in business for another five years. The House Government Reform Committee approved the bill by a voice vote.

The committee also dropped a Republican proposal that would move some drug enforcement money from state and local police agencies and give it to federal departments in states that legalized marijuana for medical use. GOP sponsors said they never considered the proposal a major part of the anti-drug campaign.

The restrictive advertising language would prohibit ads that advocate support or defeat of any clearly identified candidate, ballot initiative, legislative or regulatory proposal. It was aimed at ensuring that the White House could not use the extensive anti-drug advertising campaign to oppose state and local medical marijuana initiatives.

Federal law does not permit legalization of marijuana, and the director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, John Walters, has traveled the country to speak out against easing marijuana laws.

Maryland recently became the latest state to have a medical marijuana law, joining Hawaii, Alaska, Washington, Oregon, California, Colorado, Nevada and Maine.

Steve Fox, director of government relations for the Marijuana Policy Project, said the legislation should have included greater restrictions on the director's activities.

"Unfortunately, the committee did not extend the common sense restriction on using taxpayer funds for political purposes to the activities of the drug czar," said Fox, whose group wants to remove criminal penalties for marijuana use.

Rep. Mark Souder, R-Ind., chairman of the Government Reform panel's criminal justice subcommittee, said the groups advocating a change in the law were extremists who wrongly accused the committee of supporting political ads.

"That was never my intention or the intention of the bill," Souder said.

Copyright Associated Press.

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A hotbed of cannabis activism, Washington State is home to many organizations working to bring about rational drug policy. Here are some things to get involved with:

Cannabis Defense Coalition has been very active lately. They focus on courtroom observation and medical marijuana activism.

The ACLU-WA Drug Policy Project created the Marijuana: It's Time for a Conversation campaign, among other things.

Initiative 75, passed in 2003, deprioritized marijuana law enforcement in Seattle. A final report (2mb pdf) on the law was produced by the city.

The November Coalition, based in Colville, is a national reform group and works with prisoners and families.

SpoCannabis is a medical marijuana activist group in Spokane.

King Co. Bar Association Drug Policy Project has done amazing work educating the "suits" about the failure of our prohibition model of drug policy, and the need for a regulatory model of drug policy.

Seattle Hempfest is the third weekend in August on Seattle's waterfront.

Olympia Hempfest is a week after Seattle's big bash.