Newsweek, Feb. 3, 1997

THE WAR OVER WEED

IT CAN BE A SEDUCTIVE ARGUMENT: WHY NOT LET SICK PEOPLE EASE THEIR PAIN BY SMOKING POT? BUT DRUG WARRIORS SAY 'MEDICAL MARIJUANA' COULD LEAD TO LEGALIZATION-- AND THE COUNTRY DOES NOT SEEM READY FOR THAT.

by Tom Morgantau

Considered solely as an example of practical politics, the campaign for Proposition 215 was brilliant. It was fought and won in California, a bellwether state whose law on ballot initiatives makes it uniquely open to grass-root political movements. It attacked a policy, the U.S. drug war, about which many opinion leaders have large doubts. It mobilized a politically potent interest group - doctors - to defend their right to practice their profession as they see fit, and it appealed to voters' compassion for the people with cancer, AIDS and other deadly diseases. It used the federal government as a scapegoat and made cops and prosecutors look like dolts. On Election Day, Prop 215 scored a clean kill, 56 percent to 44. Now the fun begins.

Simply put, Prop 215 and Proposition 200, a similar measure passed in Arizona last fall, pose a frontal challenge to the American prohibition against drugs - which is exactly what some, though not all, backers of these initiatives wanted to do. By convincing voters there are humane reasons to relax current laws against marijuana use, a Hungarian-born billionaire named George Soros and his helpers created a muddle that may take years to sort out. Like many political controversies, this one is headed for the courts. After the initiatives passed, Ge. Barry McCaffrey, the drug czar, publicly warned doctors no to break federal law by prescribing marijuana. That prompted a group of California physicians to file suit claiming that their rights to advise their patients were being infringed. The policy issue is, who controls America drug laws - the federal government of the voters of California and Arizona? the political issue is whether we Americans, fighting what seems to be a endless war, want move toward a greate

r tolerance of marijuana and other drugs. That is not overstatement: the Arizona law permits the use of heroin, LSD and methamphetamines if a user gets prescriptions from two doctors.

Marijuana is the soft spot in the national opposition to drugs. Millions have tried it at some point in their lives and found that it was pleasurable and not particularly additive. To that reservoir of latent tolerance, the backers of Prop 215 shrewdly added the irresistible notion of helping people in pain - people like 77-year old Hazel Rodgers of San Francisco, who regularly smokes pot to relieve the symptoms of glaucoma and her anxiety about having been diagnosed with breast cancer. Drug warriors li McCaffrey are thus forced into the no-win position of trying to deny the weed to thousands of patients who say it makes them feel better. Never mind the fact that current medical research suggests pot doesn't do anything for glaucoma, or that other prescription drugs alleviate pain and anxiety. And never mind the fact that the fine print in the California law makes it a sham. Though sold to the voters as a way of helping people with terrible illnesses, the law specifically permits pot use for any complaint -

even migraine headaches. It sidesteps federal law by specifying that pot use is legal if a doctor merely "recommends" it orally. that may mean doctors will not lose their licenses because they didn't prescribe the drug. It also means there will be no paper trail for narcs to follow.

Considering the fact that poll after poll reveals no sing that U.S. voters want to legalize pot or any other drug, this outcome is arguably perverse. It greatly disturbs groups like the Partnership for a Drug-Free America, which points out that marijuana use among teenagers is rising steadily and that the California law contains no age restrictions. the theory here is that marijuana is a "gateway" to harder drugs. That isn't Reffer Madness alarmism: reliable shows that virtually all heroin and cocaine addicts started out with pot.

What worries drug warriors now is the possibility that would-be users will find friendly doctors to give them oral approval and then buy the weed on the black market or at so-called cannabis buyers' club, which serve as middlemen between illicit growers and their middle-class clientele. that will surely create large problems for cops trying to suppress the underground pot trade, and it could produce a new class of criminal defendants who could claim their doctors said pot was good thing to do. Ultimately, it may lead to a test case in which some prosecutor will press charge against an old lady Hazel Rodgers. "The sense of frustration here is just huge," says a U.S. Justice Department official. "The dilemma is that in trying to look tough [to deter pot use], we wind up looking draconian.

What we have here, thanks to the voters of California and Arizona, is a nightmare for drug warriors everywhere - and a small but potentially significant breach in the national resolve against drugs. Earnest appeals by McCaffrey and many others failed to stop these slippery proposals at the ballot box, and it is time for clear leadership from the top - from Bill Clinton, the man who didn't inhale. Should we legalize pot, or not? That question is clearly implied in the controversy over medical marijuana. It is an issue that all Americans, ready or not, must confront honestly and resolve.