Voters Address Marijuana Reform on State Ballot Initiatives

The issue of marijuana reform is up for debate in several western states this election season as voters in Colorado and Nevada prepare to vote on ballot initiatives that would allow the use of medical marijuana, and residents in Alaska and Mendocino County, Calif., consider whether or not to legalize marijuana for general use. Nevada's Question 9, which will allow doctors to prescribe marijuana for severe illness and pain, is likely to pass, according to a Las Vegas Review-Journal poll that found 63% of voters backed the measure and 28% opposed it. Voters in the state already approved a similar measure in 1998 by 59%. This year's vote is necessary to add the measure to the state's constitution. Colorado's Amendment 20 would also permit marijuana use for "those with severe or chronic illnesses under a doctor's care." According to a Denver Rocky-Mountain News poll, 71% of voters support the measure and 23% oppose it. Alaska's latest ballot initiative is part of the plant's lengthy history in the state, where marijuana was legal until 1990 when voters banned it. In 1998 voters decided to permit medicinal use and residents will now decide whether to again legalize marijuana and also provide "amnesty for marijuana crimes and offer restitution for time in prison"(Riley, AP/Milwaukee Journal, 10/1). According to one poll, support for the measure is at about 60% (Queary, Associated Press, 10/04). In Mendocino County, Calif., Measure G would allow "adults to grow 25 plants a piece as long as they are not for sale or transport." Under the measure, the sheriff and district attorney, who currently oppose the measure, would make marijuana their lowest priority" and county officials would "seek an end to federal anti-marijuana laws." Authorities last year raided 300 pot plantations last year and seized $204 million worth of marijuana (Riley, AP/Milwaukee Journal, 10/1). Six states have passed medical marijuana initiatives through ballot initiatives: Arizona and California approved laws in 1996; Alaska, Oregon and Washington did so in 1998; and Maine voters enacted a measure in 1999. This year, Hawaii became the first state to pass a law through its Legislature. Despite the laws, physicians still cannot legally prescribe medical marijuana because federal law specifies that any physician who prescribes marijuana to a patient may be "stripped of his federal license to prescribe drugs and be prosecuted" (National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, www.norml.org) Stay tuned to the Kaiser Daily Health Policy Reports for post-election results of this year's ballot initiatives.