Pro-Marijuana Candidates Begin Cropping Up

LOUISVILLE, Ky. —  Gubernatorial candidate Gatewood Galbraith wants to put the law back on the side of a Kentucky agricultural tradition: growing marijuana.

“Our granddaddies used to grow it by the thousands of acres” when marijuana was legal and grown mainly for fiber for rope and textiles, said Galbraith, a 43-year-old Lexington attorney.

Galbraith, a long shot in next year’s Kentucky race for governor, is among a handful of pro-legalization candidates who consider themselves political trailblazers for millions of Americans who smoke pot regularly.

They also style themselves as champions for the taxpayers who are footing the bill for the nation’s war on drugs.

In New Hampshire, congressional candidate Michael Weddle is challenging voters to heed their state motto--”Live Free or Die”--by supporting marijuana legalization. Weddle, a state representative, is among eight candidates in a GOP primary for an open U.S. House seat.

In Kansas, Democratic congressional candidate Mark Creamer now operates his pro-legalization campaign from a jail cell, where he is serving a six-month sentence for lighting a marijuana cigarette in a police station. Creamer is given little chance against Democratic Rep. Jim Slattery in the state’s Aug. 7 primary.

Kevin Zeese, vice president of the private, pro-legalization Drug Policy Foundation in Washington, said several other major-party candidates also are carrying the marijuana legalization banner this year.

Zeese said incumbent officeholders who support marijuana legalization and are running for reelection include U.S. Rep. George W. Crockett Jr. (D-Mich.); Democratic state Rep. Elbert Walton in Missouri; Democratic state Sen. Joe Galiber in New York; and Bill Mathesius, the Republican county executive in Mercer County, N.J.

Zeese believes the political winds have changed since the conservative tide swept the nation during the 1980s, dousing the marijuana legalization debates of the 1960s and 1970s.

“Some politicians are starting to get ahead of the curve on this,” Zeese said. “Something like this was unspeakable three years ago and now people are running for office on it.”

Supporters of legalization include conservatives such as economist Milton Friedman and columnist William F. Buckley Jr. Other proponents are former Atty. Gen. Ramsey Clark, Baltimore Mayor Kurt Schmoke and U.S. District Judge Robert W. Sweet in New York. Former Secretary of State George P. Shultz has said legalization should at least be considered.

Many supporters of legalization say marijuana is less potent and addictive than cigarettes or alcohol, and shouldn’t be grouped with cocaine, heroin, crack or other hard drugs. They also contend that legalizing marijuana would be a big weapon against crime syndicates that control the drug world.

But federal drug policy director William J. Bennett has branded legalization “stupid and morally atrocious.”

“It doesn’t make any sense,” Bennett has said. “It is becoming something of a fashion to believe this (legalization) in certain circles of opinion. But even though it’s fashionable, it’s still every bit as dumb and compassionless as it was before.”

Dewey Stokes, the national president of the Fraternal Order of Police, said legalizing marijuana would prompt more people to develop drug habits and increase demand for harder drugs.

“I think the anti-drug effort has to be successful if we’re going to have a country,” he said.

Kentucky Democratic leaders have taken steps recently to distance themselves from Galbraith and a new grass-roots organization called the “Green Democrats.”

Galbraith, Weddle and Creamer all face long odds at the polls this year. But legalization supporters express confidence that their numbers will grow as opposition mounts to the costs of a federal anti-drug policy they deem ineffective.

“As the repression continues and the erosion of civil liberties continue . . . so will the awareness that solving the problem with a drug war is not the solution,” said Weddle, a two-term state House member from Portsmouth, N.H.

Weddle, a Democrat who turned Republican for the September primary, said voter response has been better than he expected.

In Kentucky, where marijuana outstrips tobacco as the leading--albeit illegal--cash crop, Galbraith said the response has been “absolutely stunning” to his proposal to strictly regulate and tax marijuana.

Galbraith, who is among five announced or likely candidates for the Democratic nomination for governor next year, estimates that the state could reap up to $1 billion in taxes each year from legal marijuana.

He said Kentucky was the nation’s leading producer of marijuana--which was commonly called hemp--for a century before it was banned in 1936.

John Dunlap, a spokesman for the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws in Washington, said legalizing marijuana would generate $40 billion a year nationally. Billions more could be saved by scrapping local, state and federal eradication efforts, he said.