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Group Collects 107,000 Signatures to Legalize Marijuana in Nevada

Summary and Full Text of the proposed initiative

June 21, 2002 -- The march to legalize drugs pushes on.

Nevadans for Responsible Law Enforcement turned in 107,000 petition signatures for a ballot initiative that will legalize possession of up to 3 ounces of marijuana for recreational use for everyone over age 21. The effort is financed by the Washington D.C.-based Marijuana Policy Project (MPP). The measure also requires the state to grow, tax, and distribute marijuana to retail stores for sale to the public. To place the initiative on the ballot, the group needs 61,000 valid signatures. The validation process is under way. Because ballot initiatives change the state's constitution, voters would have to approve the initiative again in 2004 before it could become law.

Meanwhile, MPP is collecting signatures in Washington D.C. to place a medical marijuana initiative on that city's 2002 ballot. D.C. voters approved such an initiative in 1998, but Congress invalidated the results. Since the medical marijuana initiative drive began in the mid-1990s, critics have charged that advocates are using the issue as a wedge to legalize marijuana for all use. The introduction of the Nevada legalization petition confirms critics' concerns. A spokeswoman for Nevadans for Responsible Law Enforcement says similar efforts are under way in other states.

The Marijuana Reform Party of New York will try to win 50,000 votes in the 2000 election to become an official political party. It hopes to persuade the state legislature to legalize marijuana for medical use.

Legalization advocates have also tried to move their agenda via a second initiative strategy, which they publicize as "treatment rather than incarceration" for nonviolent drug offenders. However, the fine print in these initiatives not only greatly weakens drug laws, but makes it difficult for addicts to get to – and stay in – treatment. The Drug Policy Alliance (the Lindesmith Centers East and West, Drug Policy Foundation, Campaign for New Drug Policies, Americans for Medical Rights, and others) sponsored California Proposition 36, which voters passed in the 2000 election. Prop 36 was financed by George Soros, Peter Lewis, and John Sperling, the same three men who funded all the medical marijuana initiatives passed to date. While promoted as a measure for first-and second-time offenders, the average Prop 36 participant has 14 prior arrests, 3 felony convictions, and 5 misdemeanor convictions, according to The Los Angeles Times. Preliminary reports say that nearly half of those released from prison fail to show up for treatment.

The Drug Policy Alliance announces that it is "circulating petitions to put the ‘Treatment Instead of Jail for Certain Non-Violent Drug Offenders Initiative of 2002' on the November 2002 ballot in Washington DC." The Alliance claims that "this initiative will offer treatment instead of incarceration for first- and second-time non-violent drug offenders."

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