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From Killer Weed to Popular Medicine: The Evolution of American Drug Control Policy, 1937–2000

Part of: JPH 30th Anniversary Most Cited

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 April 2009

Kathleen Ferraiolo
Kathleen Ferraiolo
Affiliation:
James Madison University
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Here we have a drug that is not like opium. Opium has all the good of Dr. Jekyll and all the evil of Mr. Hyde. This drug [marijuana] is entirely the monster Hyde, the harmful effect of which cannot be measured.

—Harry J. Anslinger, Hearings on the Marihuana Tax Act, U.S.

House of Representatives Committee on Ways and Means, 1937

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Policy History , Volume 19 , Issue 2 , April 2007 , pp. 147 - 179
Copyright
Copyright © The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA. 2007

References

Notes

1. According to exit polls, 275,373 voters supported I-148, the medical marijuana measure, for a margin of victory of 62 percent to 38 percent. Meanwhile, 265,473 individuals, or 59 percent of all voters, voted to reelect George W. Bush. See cnn.com/election for more details, as well as Walter Kim, “What Color Is Montana?” New York Times Magazine, 2 January 2005, 12.

2. Marijuana has most often been proposed to be useful as a medicine for diseases and conditions including cancer chemotherapy, AIDS wasting syndrome, glaucoma, epilepsy, and multiple sclerosis. See Grinspoon, Lester M.D., and Bakalar, James B., Marihuana: The Forbidden Medicine (New Haven, 1993).Google Scholar

3. In addition, in Hawaii (2000), Vermont (2004), and Rhode Island (2006), medical marijuana measures were passed through the legislative process. This article focuses on the period from 1996 to 2000, which witnessed the rise of the medical marijuana movement.

4. Most measures passed after Proposition 215 abandoned many of its more controversial features and included only popular and consensual provisions. For example, the Maine initiative restricted the use of medical marijuana to patients only with severe illnesses, including cancer and AIDS, and allowed patients to possess only small amounts of the drug.

5. Gerber, Elisabeth, Lupia, Arthur, McCubbins, Mathew D., and Kiewet, D. Roderick, Stealing the Initiative: How State Government Responds to Direct Democracy (Upper Saddle River, N.J.: 2001).Google Scholar

6. Grinspoon and Bakalar, Marihuana: The Forbidden Medicine.

7. One historian of drug policy has called this policy shift one of history's great about-faces. Courtwright, David, Forces of Habit: Drugs and the Making of the Modern World (Cambridge, Mass., 2001).Google Scholar

8. Drug policy historians note a distinction between two major groups of drug manufacturers: so-called “ethical drug firms, who identified themselves as such on the grounds that they supplied drug products exclusively for medical purposes,” and firms selling patent medicines, which distinguished themselves from ethical firms “not so much by their products … but by their choice of targets. Patent medicines were directly, and without apology, aimed at the general public.” Spillane, Joseph F., “The Road to the Harrison Narcotics Act: Drugs and Their Control, 1875–1918,” in Erlen, Jonathan and Spillane, Joseph F., eds., Federal Drug Control: The Evolution of Policy and Practice (New York, 2004), 1–24: 4–5.Google Scholar

9. See Jonnes, Jill, Hep-Cats, Narcs, and Pipe Dreams: A History of America's Romance with Illegal Drugs (New York, 1996)Google Scholar; Erlen and Spillane, eds., Federal Drug Control; Tracy, Sarah W. and Acker, Caroline Jean, eds., Altering American Consciousness: The History of Alcohol and Drug Use in the United States, 1800–2000 (Amherst, 2004).Google Scholar

10. Spillane, “The Road to the Harrison Narcotics Act,” 1–24: 18.

11. Ibid.

12. After wrestling with the question of its legality for years, in the 1928 Nigro v. United States ruling the Supreme Court declared that the Harrison Act was constitutional. Other Supreme Court cases involving the Harrison Act included U.S. v. Jin Fuey Moy (1916), U.S. v. Doremus (1918), and Linder v. U.S. (1928). See McWilliams, John C., The Protectors: Harry J. Anslinger and the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, 1930–1962 (Newark, Del., 1992).Google Scholar

13. Carroll, Rebecca, “Under the Influence: Harry Anslinger's Role in Shaping America's Drug Policy,” in Erlen, and Spillane, , eds., Federal Drug Control, 61–99.Google Scholar

14. Spillane, Joseph F., “Federal Policy in the Post-Anslinger Era: A Guide to Sources, 1962–2001,” in Erlen, and Spillane, , eds., Federal Drug Control, 209–220: 209Google Scholar. For a classic overview of American drug control policy in the twentieth century, see Musto, David F., The American Disease: Origins of Narcotic Control (New Haven, 1973)Google Scholar; for overviews of marijuana policy, see Himmelstein, Jerome L., The Strange Career of Marihuana (Westport, Conn., 1983)Google Scholar, and Bonnie, Richard J. and Whitebread, Charles H. II, The Marihuana Conviction: A History of Marihuana Prohibition in the United States (Charlottesville, 1974).Google Scholar

15. Baumgartner, Frank R. and Jones, Bryan D., Agendas and Instability in American Politics (Chicago, 1993).Google Scholar

16. Ibid.Schattschneider, E. E., The Semi-Sovereign People (New York, 1960)Google Scholar; Cobb, Roger W. and Elder, Charles D., Participation in American Politics: The Dynamics of Agenda-Building (Baltimore, 1983).Google Scholar

17. Ironically, the nature of ballot initiative politics did not eliminate the role of courts and legislatures in drug control policy, but only shifted their influence from policy formulation to policy implementation.

18. Together and separately, Gerber, Bowler, Donovan, and Tolbert have produced a great deal of scholarship in this area. See, for example, Bowler, Shaun and Donovan, Todd, Demanding Choices: Opinion, Voting, and Direct Democracy (Ann Arbor, 1998)Google Scholar; Bowler, Shaun, Donovan, Todd, and Tolbert, Caroline J., eds., Citizens as Legislators: Direct Democracy in the United States (Columbus, 1998)Google Scholar; Briffault, Richard, “Distrust of Democracy,” Texas Law Review 63 (1985): 1347–1375Google Scholar; Ellis, Richard J., Democratic Delusions: The Initiative Process in America (Lawrence, Kans., 2002)Google Scholar; Gamble, Barbara S., “Putting Civil Rights to a Popular Vote, American Journal of Political Science 4, no. 1 (1997): 245–269Google Scholar; Gerber, Elisabeth R., The Populist Paradox: Interest Group Influence and the Promise of Direct Legislation (Princeton, 1999)Google Scholar; Gerber, Elisabeth R., Hajnal, Zoltan L., and Louch, Hugh, “Minorities and Direct Legislation: Evidence from California Ballot Proposition Elections, Journal of Politics 64 (2002): 164–177Google Scholar; Cronin, Thomas E., Direct Democracy: The Politics of Initiative, Referendum, and Recall (Cambridge, Mass., 1989)Google Scholar; Haskell, John, Direct Democracy or Representative Government? Dispelling the Populist Myth (Boulder, 2001)Google Scholar; Lupia, Arthur, “Shortcuts Versus Encyclopedias: Information and Voting Behavior in California Insurance Reform Elections, American Political Science Review 88 (1994): 63–76Google Scholar; Gerber, Elisabeth R. and Lupia, Arthur, “Voter Competence in Direct Legislation Elections, in Elkin, Stephen L. and Soltan, Karol Edward, eds., Citizen Competence and Democratic Institutions (University Park, Pa., 1999): 147–160.Google Scholar

19. Gerber, Lupia, McCubbins, and Kiewet, Stealing the Initiative; Gerber, Elisabeth, “Legislative Response to the Threat of Popular Initiatives, American Journal of Political Science 40 (1996): 99–128Google Scholar; Lascher, Edward L. Jr., Hagen, Michael G., and Rochlin, Steven A., “Gun Behind the Door? Ballot Initiatives, State Policies, and Public Opinion, Journal of Politics 58 (1996): 760–775Google Scholar; Matsusaka, John G., “Fiscal Effects of the Voter Initiative: Evidence from the Last Thirty Years, Journal of Political Economy 103 (1995): 587–623.Google Scholar

20. McWilliams, John C., “Through the Past Darkly: The Politics and Policies of America's Drug War, Journal of Policy History, Special Issue on Drug Control Policy: Essays in Historical and Comparative Perspective 3, no. 1 (1991): 356–392Google Scholar; Morgan, H. Wayne, Drugs in America: A Social Sistory, 1800–1980 (Syracuse, 1981)Google Scholar; Courtwright, Forces of Habit.

21. Morgan, Drugs in America; Courtwright, Forces of Habit; McAllister, William B., “Habitual Problems: The United States and International Drug Control,” in Erlen, and Spillane, , eds., Federal Drug Control, 175–207.Google Scholar

22. Jonnes, Hep-Cats, Narcs, and Pipe Dreams, 417.

23. Erler and Spillane, eds., Federal Drug Control.

24. Jonnes, Hep-Cats, Narcs, and Pipe Dreams.

25. Anslinger wanted to sidestep questions of constitutionality that arose surrounding the Harrison Act, to prevent judicial displeasure at too many marijuana possession cases coming before federal courts, to avoid the ire of the pharmaceutical industry, and to protect the new bureau's autonomy and reputation.

26. Since the early twentieth century, the federal government has offered a series of justifications for its regulation of narcotics, ranging from international treaty obligations to the federal taxing power to, most recently, the interstate commerce clause.

27. States' rights advocates critical of the Harrison Act, in particular the American Medical Association, were concerned about the federal government's involvement in seeming to regulate the practice of medicine, which had traditionally been a state function. See McWilliams, The Protectors. In his testimony in favor of the Marihuana Tax Act before the House Ways and Means Committee, Clinton M. Hester, assistant general counsel for the Treasury Department, acknowledged that “although the $100 transfer tax in this bill is intended to be prohibitive, as is the $200 transfer tax in the National Firearms Act, it is submitted that it is constitutional as a revenue measure.” U.S. House, Committee on Ways and Means, Taxation of Marihuana: Hearings Before the Committee on Ways and Means, 75th Cong., 1st sess., Washington, D.C., 1937, 9Google Scholar. The Harrison Act set several important precedents in American drug policy, including a changed view of addiction from a disease to a vice and a crime and a pattern of drug law enforcement that emphasized interpretation and enforcement of drug legislation. Marijuana was not included in the Harrison Act due in part to opposition from the pharmaceutical industry.

28. Bonnie and Whitebread, The Marihuana Conviction; Meier, Kenneth J., The Politics of Sin: Drugs, Alcohol, and Public Policy (Armonk, N.Y., 1994).Google Scholar

29. Bonnie and Whitebread, The Marihuana Conviction, 124; Meier, The Politics of Sin, 63.

30. Physicians were among the only individuals who could be registered; for the time being, marijuana was still available and legal for medical use.

31. The constitutionality of the MTA was challenged but ultimately upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in United States v. Sanchez et al., 340 U.S. 42 (1950), in which the Court decided that the transfer tax on marijuana was a legitimate use of federal taxing power.

32. During congressional testimony, House Ways and Means Committee members asked questions about the growth and production, properties, and effects of marijuana that suggested a lack of familiarity with the drug. U.S. House, Committee on Ways and Means. Taxation of Marihuana; McWilliams, The Protectors; Sharp, Elaine B., The Dilemma of Drug Policy in the United States (New York, 1994)Google Scholar; Grinspoon and Bakalar, Marihuana, the Forbidden Medicine. The link between marijuana use and insanity, as well as mental illness generally, was strong in Britain and its colony India in the late nineteenth century; for a good account, see Mills, James H., Cannabis Britannica: Empire, Trade, and Prohibition: 1800–1928 (Oxford, 2003).Google Scholar

33. Qtd. in McWilliams, The Protectors, 54. The quotation is from Anslinger's private papers on the Victor Licata case, dated 17 October 1933, which are held by the Special Collections Department of Pattee Library at The Pennsylvania State University.

34. U.S. House, Committee on Ways and Means, Taxation of Marihuana, 23.

35. Ibid., 19.

36. Ibid.; Bonnie and Whitebread, The Marihuana Conviction.

37. U.S. House. 75th Cong., 1st sess., H.R. 6906, An Act to impose an occupational excise tax upon certain dealers in marihuana, to impose a transfer tax upon certain dealings in marihuana, and to safeguard the revenue therefrom by registry and recording. Washington, D.C., 1937.

38. For example, Section 14 authorized the Treasury Department secretary to “make, prescribe, and publish all necessary rules and regulations for carrying out the provisions of this Act and to confer or impose any of the rights, privileges, powers, and duties conferred or imposed upon him by this Act upon such officers or employees of the Treasury Department as he shall designate or appoint.”

39. Sharp, The Dilemma of Drug Policy in the United States, 22.

40. Meier, The Politics of Sin, 37.

41. “When President Eisenhower signed the Narcotic Control Act on July 18, 1956,” one historian notes, “he put into place the heaviest penalties for U.S. narcotics law violations to that point.” Carroll, Rebecca, “The Narcotic Control Act Triggers the Great Nondebate: Treatment Loses to Punishment,” in Erlen, and Spillane, , eds., Federal Drug Control, 101–144: 111.Google Scholar

42. Bertram, Eva, Blachman, Morris, Sharpe, Kenneth, and Andreas, Peter, Drug War Politics: The Price of Denial (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1996).Google Scholar

43. Grinspoon and Bakalar, Marihuana, the Forbidden Medicine.

44. Ibid., 11. See also Bonnie and Whitebread, The Marihuana Conviction, 204; McWilliams, The Protectors.

45. Baumgartner and Jones, Agendas and Instability in American Politics.

46. Sharp, The Dilemma of Drug Policy in the United States, 135.

47. Campbell, Nancy D., Using Women: Gender, Drug Policy, and Social Justice (New York: Routledge, 2000)Google Scholar; McClellan, Michelle, “‘Lady Tipplers’: Gendering the Modern Alcoholism Paradigm, 1933–1960,” in Tracy, and Acker, , eds., Altering American Consciousness, 267–297Google Scholar; Rotskoff, Lori E., “Sober Husbands and Supportive Wives: Marital Dramas of Alcoholism in Post–World War II America,” in Tracy, and Acker, , eds., Altering American Consciousness, 298–326.Google Scholar

48. Acker, Caroline Jean, “Portrait of an Addicted Family: Dynamics of Opiate Addiction in the Early Twentieth Century,” in Tracy, and Acker, , eds., Altering American Consciousness, 165–181: 167.Google Scholar

49. Spillane, “The Road to the Harrison Narcotics Act,” 9.

50. Jonnes, Hep-Cats, Narcs, and Pipe Dreams.

51. Morgan, Drugs in America, 138; Mills, Cannabis Britannica.

52. Meier, The Politics of Sin, 33.

53. Bonnie and Whitebread, The Marihuana Conviction, 222.

54. Meier, The Politics of Sin, 34; see also Himmelstein, The Strange Career of Marihuana.

55. The newspapers and magazines of William Randolph Hearst's media empire, as well as social reform groups such as the Women's Christian Temperance Union, had been engaged in a crusade against narcotics for years before the passage of the MTA. Hearst developed a personal relationship with Anslinger, and he knew that sensational stories about the dangers of marijuana use among Mexicans, African Americans, and other politically unpopular groups would sell newspapers. See Spillane, “Building a Drug Control Regime,” in Erlen and Spillane, eds., Federal Drug Control. See also Anslinger, Harry J. and Cooper, Courtney Riley, “Marihuana: Assassin of Youth,” American Magazine, 07 1938, 18–19, 150–53Google Scholar; Gard, Wayne, “Youth Gone Loco,” Christian Century, 06 1938, 812–813.Google Scholar

56. See, for example, Himmelstein, The Strange Career of Marihuana; Bertram et al., Drug War Politics; Carroll, “The Narcotic Control Act Triggers the Great Nondebate.”

57. Musto, The American Disease, 291.

58. Sharp, The Dilemma of Drug Policy in the United States, 136.

59. Ibid.

60. Himmelstein, The Strange Career of Marihuana; Jonnes, Hep-Cats, Narcs, and Pipe Dreams.

61. Jonnes, Hep-Cats, Narcs, and Pipe Dreams; Sloman, Larry, Reefer Madness: A History of Marijuana in America (Indianapolis, 1979).Google Scholar

62. Jonnes, Hep-Cats, Narcs, and Pipe Dreams, 238.

63. Ibid.; Himmelstein, The Strange Career of Marijuana.

64. Much of the language dealing with the justification for federal control over illegal drugs can be found in the Findings and Declarations portion of Title II on Control and Enforcement, which concluded that “federal control of the intrastate incidences of traffic in controlled substances is essential to the effective control of the interstate incidences of such traffic.” U.S. Public Law 91–513. 91st Cong., 2d sess.

65. U.S. House, 91st Cong., 2d sess., Subcommittee on Public Health and Welfare of the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce. Drug Abuse Control Amendments–1970: Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Public Health and Welfare of the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce.

66. Ibid. For example, in a statement on the Senate floor in 1970, Senator Edward Kennedy articulated the broader view of drug abuse that emerged during the 1960s and 1970s in which the law enforcement approach was seen as, by itself, incapable of solving America's drug problem. “Drug abuse is not only a law enforcement problem, or only a medical problem,” Kennedy argued, “it is a legal, moral, medical, psychological, social and cultural phenomenon.” U.S. Senate, Senator Kennedy of Massachusetts speaking during the testimony on Controlled Dangerous Substances Act of 1969, 91st Cong., 2d sess. Congressional Record (19 January 1970–27 January 1970), vol. 116, pt. 1.

67. U.S. House, Subcommittee on Public Health and Welfare of the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, Drug Abuse Control Amendments–1970, 109.

68. Ibid., 116.

69. Bertram et al., Drug War Politics, 88–89; see also Jonnes, Hep-Cats, Narcs, and Pipe Dreams, chap. 14.

70. Qtd. in Baum, Dan, Smoke and Mirrors: The War on Drugs and the Politics of Failure (Boston, 1996), 95Google Scholar; Sharp, The Dilemma of Drug Policy in the United States.

71. Meier, The Politics of Sin. The decriminalization statutes retained civil fines for minor marijuana offenses but eliminated arrest and jail, substituting a citation similar to a traffic ticket.

72. Patrick McCartney, “Green Fire,” manuscript, April 2003.

73. Bertram et al., Drug War Politics, 110.

74. Campbell, Using Women.

75. Musto cites a September 1989 New York Times poll in which the drug issue surpassed all other causes for concern in the United States. Musto, The American Disease, 281.

76. Bertram et al., 111.

77. Qtd. in Baum, Smoke and Mirrors, 291.

78. Sharp, The Dilemma of Drug Policy in the United States, chap. 4.

79. Ibid., 56.

80. Bock, Alan W., Waiting to Inhale: The Politics of Medical Marijuana s(Santa Ana, Calif., 2000)Google Scholar. Twenty-four states permit the use of the ballot initiative.

81. Eight patients are still receiving medical marijuana through the IND program. “U.S. Rescinds Approval of Marijuana as Therapy,” New York Times, 11 March 1992, A21; Auge, Karen, “Medicinal Pot: A Heated Debate; Voters to Weigh Legalizing Patients' Medical Use,” Denver Post, 16 07 2000, A1.Google Scholar

82. Consistent with their attempts to frame the debate over medical marijuana in terms of medicine and public health, many medical marijuana advocates argue that the DEA should not be responsible for making decisions about medical marijuana policy. However, supporters were also disenchanted with the Food and Drug Administration's drug approval process, which they believe disadvantages “natural” remedies like marijuana that are not developed by profit-seeking drug companies. This dissatisfaction with the scheduling of marijuana and the way in which new drugs, particularly “natural, plant-based medicines,” are approved may also help explain the nontraditional policymaking route advocates pursued. See Zimmerman, Bill, Bayer, Rick, and Crumpacker, Nancy, Is Marijuana the Right Medicine for You? A Factual Guide to Medical Uses of Marijuana (New Canaan, Conn., 1998).Google Scholar

83. Treaster, Joseph B., “The 1992 Campaign; Candidates' Records; Four Years of Bush's Drug War: New Funds but an Old Strategy,” New York Times, 28 07 1992, A1.Google Scholar

84. Bertram et al., Drug War Politics, 115.

85. Proposition P, which passed with nearly 80 percent of the vote, recommended that the state of California allow marijuana to be used as a medicine.

86. In California politics, populous liberal regions such as the Bay Area can often set agendas and determine policy outcomes for the rest of the state. Many opponents of Proposition 215 point out that the initiative failed in most California counties but succeeded in the most populous ones, where it received a disproportionate amount of voter support. Only 27 of California's 58 counties approved the measure, and many of these were among the state's most liberal Northern California counties, such as San Francisco, Santa Cruz, and Marin. The population centers of the state, including San Francisco (78.1 percent), Los Angeles (55.7 percent), Sacramento (53.8 percent), and San Diego (52.1 percent), all gave majority support to Prop 215, while a number of the less populous counties in the Central Valley decisively rejected it. “Supplement Statement of Vote.” [Available online], California Secretary of State. Available from http://vote96.ss.ca.gov/. Accessed 6 August 2003.

87. Lucas, Greg, “Bills on Pot, Needles Die in Flurry of Vetoes; Wilson Acts at Last Minute on Controversial Measure,” San Francisco Chronicle, 1 10 1994, A1Google Scholar; “Votes—Roll Call, SB 1364.” [Available online.] Available from http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/. Accessed 6 August 2003.

88. Ibid. Letter from Senator John Vasconcellos to Governor Pete Wilson, 15 September 1995. I obtained the latter document as well as other such documents cited here either from interview subjects or from the California and Maine State Archives; Governor Pete Wilson, Veto Message, 15 October 1995.

89. Proposition 215 proponents were not the first to propose a marijuana-related initiative in California, but they were the most successful: from 1966 to 1996 marijuana activists introduced more than a dozen propositions dealing with the drug, all but one of which failed to qualify for the ballot (Proposition 19, which would have decriminalized possession, cultivation, and use of marijuana for adult personal use, was rejected overwhelmingly by voters in November 1972).

90. In Maine, a bill that lawmakers approved in 1992 was rejected by Republican Governor John McKernan, and a 1994 measure was withdrawn due to the threat of a gubernatorial veto. Both measures would have provided a defense against possession and cultivation of a small amount of marijuana for medical purposes and applied only to patients with particular diseases who were not responding well to traditional treatments. A 1997 medical marijuana bill passed the Joint Standing Committee on Health and Human Services on a near-unanimous vote but died on the House floor.

91. Personal interview by author, 28 January 2003, Newport Beach, Calif., tape recording; personal interview by author, 30 January 2003, Sacramento, tape recording; personal interview by author, 19 May 2003, Portland, Maine, tape recording; telephone interview by author, 4 March 2003. Written notes, telephone interview by author, 12 February 2003. Written notes, California Narcotic Officers' Association, “Use of Marijuana as a ‘Medicine,’” 17 June 1996; Thomas J. Gorman, “Marijuana is NOT a medicine” (Sacramento: California Narcotic Officers' Association, 1996).

92. Personal interview by author, 29 January 2003, San Francisco, tape recording; personal interview by author, 20 May 2003, Augusta, Maine, tape recording; CMA On- Call: The California Medical Association's Information-On-Demand Service, Document #1315, The Compassionate Use Act of 1996, The Medical Marijuana Initiative, CMA Legal Counsel, January 2003.

93. Personal interview by author, 30 January 2003, Sacramento, tape recording.

94. Ibid.Weinstein, Joshua L., “Medical Marijuana Question Likely to Go to Maine Voters,” Portland Press Herald, 24 11 1998, 3B.Google Scholar

95. Californians for Compassionate Use, “David Binder Poll Results, California Medical Marijuana Initiative.” This document was obtained from a California interview subject. Respondents were more likely to support medical marijuana when asked if they would be in favor of “a ballot proposition that would end the prohibition on possession of marijuana for personal medical use where the medical use has been recommended by a licensed physician or other certified medical provider.” When given more specific information about the content of the initiative, including a provision that would allow patients to cultivate their own marijuana, support dropped to 59 percent. These results foreshadow the proponents' campaign strategy, which emphasized the general idea of medical marijuana rather than the particular, more controversial features of the ballot initiative. The poll had a sample size of 750 and a margin of error of +/- 3.6 percent; interviews were conducted from 2 March to 8 March 1995.

96. In Maine, polls conducted in 1997 and 1999 showed high levels of support for a ballot initiative. In both Maine and California, as well as nationally, questions about legalization elicited much less favorable opinions. Californians for Compassionate Use, “David Binder Poll Results, California Medical Marijuana Initiative.” Document obtained from California interview subject. Fairbank, Mauslin, & Associates, Maine Statewide Poll, 17 June 1997. Document obtained from Maine interview subject. See also Richard Schmitz and Chuck Thomas, with Robert Kampia, eds., “State-by-State Medical Marijuana Laws: How to Remove the Threat of Arrest,” [Available online.] Marijuana Policy Project, available from http://www.mpp.org/statelaw/index2.html. Accessed 1 June 2002.

97. Californians for Medical Rights Press Release, “Poll Illuminates Reasons Voters Support Prop. 215,” 28 October 1996. As stated above, many of the campaign materials I cite were obtained either directly from proponents and opponents I interviewed or from California freelance journalist Patrick McCartney, who is writing a book about Proposition 215 and generously agreed to share many of his files with me.

98. Schattschneider, The Semi-Sovereign People.

99. Personal interview by author, 27 January 2003, Santa Monica, Calif., tape recording.

100. I conducted personal interviews with several medical marijuana opponents in Maine and California, including representatives from the California Narcotics Officers' Association (the main opponent of Proposition 215), the California State Sheriffs' Association, and the Maine Chiefs of Police Association. I also conducted interviews with a number of physicians, including representatives of medical organizations.

101. Shultz, Jim, The Initiative Cookbook: Recipes and Stories from California's Ballot Wars (San Francisco, 1996).Google Scholar

102. Sharp, The Dilemma of Drug Policy in the United States, 135.

103. Memo from Dale Gieringer, coordinator, California NORML, to Californians for Medical Rights, Re: “Our Message and How to Win the Campaign,” 1 May 1996.

104. Memo from Jim Gonzalez to Bill Zimmerman, George Zimmer, and others, 1 November 1996.

105. Personal interview by author, 30 January 2003, Sacramento, tape recording.

106. Baumohl, Jim, “Maintaining Orthodoxy: The Depression-Era Struggle over Morphine Maintenance in California,” in Tracy, and Acker, , eds., Altering American Consciousness: 225–266, 251.Google Scholar

107. AMR Campaign Briefing Book, June 1998, table 3, p. 2. This effort to mainstream the medical marijuana issue offered potential advantages both to patients (who could benefit from more liberal attitudes toward their medical marijuana use) and to advocates who might have had a broader agenda (thus perhaps paving the way for more ambitious drug law reform measures in the future–a key concern of medical marijuana opponents).

108. Personal interview by author, 19 May 2003, Portland, Maine, tape recording.

109. For instance, in a radio advertisement aired in support of Maine's medical marijuana initiative in 1999, Cumberland county sheriff Mark Dion argued that “people who are gravely ill should be able to use any medicine that reduces their pain and suffering,” and claimed that the initiative at stake was a “public health issue.” “New Radio Ad Featuring Sheriff Hits Radio Waves, Internet.” [Available online.] Mainers for Medical Rights, formerly available from http://www.mainers.org/newsclips/radio102399.htm. Accessed 23 July 2002.

110. The official stance of the American Medical Association and its state affiliates is to withhold endorsements of medical marijuana initiatives and instead support more research on medical marijuana. Still, proponents did secure endorsements from some smaller but influential medical groups, such as the California Academy of Family Physicians and the California Nurses Association. In addition, the group Mainers for Medical Rights published the names of more than 175 health-care professionals who supported Question 2.

111. Of many examples, see Ellis, Democratic Delusions; Haskell, Direct Democracy or Representative Government? Broder, David S., Democracy Derailed: Initiative Campaigns and the Power of Money (New York, 2000).Google Scholar

112. Telephone interview by author, 7 April 2003, California, written notes.

113. Fairbank, Mauslin, & Associates, Maine Statewide Poll, 17 June 1997.

114. “Interdiction and Incarceration Still Top Remedies,” The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, 21 March 2001, available from http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=16. Accessed 3 October 2005.

115. Amendment to Ballot Measure Committee Campaign Disclosure Statement, filed by Californians for Medical Rights, 2 June 1997; telephone communication with Diana True, Maine Commission on Governmental Ethics and Election Practices, 12 August 2003.

116. Finkel advances a similar argument in a study of campaign effects; see Finkel, Steven E., “Reexamining the Minimal Effects Model in Recent Presidential Elections,” Journal of Politics 55, no. 1 (1993): 1–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

117. For example, in comments in a February 2000 e-mail message to a state medical marijuana advocate, an AMR official confidently argued that “the feds are a paper tiger on this issue. They have the power to solve the medical marijuana issue. But they don't have the resources, backbone or political support to do anything that really stops progress in the states.” Received from telephone interview subject (Arkansas), 11 February 2004.