*EPF407 11/07/2002
Bush Administration Hails Failure of Pro-Drug Ballot Initiatives
(Three measures defeated in "common sense" vote) (500)

By Charlene Porter
Washington File Staff Writer

Washington ���� Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) John Walters says that the voters' rejection of ballot measures to relax drug laws in three U.S. states November 5 was "a stunning victory of common sense over pro-drug propaganda."

In Arizona, voters turned down an initiative to allow medicinal use of marijuana. Ohio voters said "no" to a proposal to mandate treatment instead of jail time for some drug offenders. The people of Nevada defeated a referendum question that would have allowed possession of small amounts of marijuana for recreational use.

The results "affirm what most Americans already know: that no family, no community, no state is better off with more drug use," Walters said in a statement issued November 6.

He also criticized the various groups responsible for waging the well-funded lobbying campaigns to put the measures before voters. "Despite being outspent by as much as 25 to 1, voters refused to have their voices drowned out by those who are indifferent to the harms that drug use brings."

Walters played an active role in the defeat of the measures. He visited all three states in the months before the election meeting with state and local officials, treatment providers, law enforcement and youth groups to drive home the message about the dangers of drug abuse and its social consequences.

The possibility that U.S. voters might also be influenced by actions that other nations have taken to liberalize drug laws was another factor Walters took issue with in his campaign to work against the ballot measures, according to an ONDCP spokesperson.

Walters expressed his concerns about the legalization movement in a July editorial published in the nationally distributed Wall Street Journal shortly after Britain acted to downgrade the possession of cannabis to the status of a non-arrestable offense.

"Legalization, by removing penalties and reducing price would increase drug demand," Walters wrote. "Make something easier and cheaper to obtain, and you increase the number of people who will try it."

While legalization advocates suggest that the Dutch action to decriminalize marijuana in 1976 has had a benign effect, Walters said that's not true. "As drugs gained social acceptance, use increased consistently and sharply, with a 300 percent rise in use by 1996 among 18-20-year-olds."

Walters derided another pro-legalization argument ���� that recreational drug use is a victimless crime. "Studies indicate that up to 80 percent of our child welfare caseload involves caregivers who abuse substances," Walters wrote. "Drug users do not harm only themselves."

The November 6 ONDCP statement declares that the defeated state ballot measures "represent the high-watermark of the drug legalization movement" in the United States, but the Bush administration still casts a wary eye toward proposals under consideration in Canada to liberalize drug laws. Pointing to the nation's northern neighbor as the source of the most potent form of marijuana now coming into the United States, ONDCP spokesperson Jennifer de Vallance said in a telephone interview that any action to relax drug laws in Canada would have a "clear and profound impact" on the United States.

(The Washington File is a product of the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

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