By Steven Wishnia, AlterNet Source: AlterNet The Bush junta's record on pot is abysmal. Some people hoped that as a Republican recovering alcoholic and cokehead, George W. might pull a "Nixon goes to China" on drug policy, but his performance in office has been more like Nixon bombing hospitals in Vietnam. From the crackdowns on medical marijuana and glass pipes to the threats to Canada if it decriminalizes pot, he's made cultural war on cannabis the center of his drug policy. So what are the alternatives? Well, as it's unlikely that the US will elect a Green or a Libertarian in 2004, that leaves the Democrats. Which isn't much. None of the nine candidates currently running is as extreme as Bush, but the ones who have criticized the Drug War the most are the ones considered least likely to win. Except for Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich -- http://www.kucinich.us/ -- none of the candidates' campaigns returned phone calls. This is understandable. If they told us they support the current laws, they'd be telling several hundred thousand pot-smokers that they back the absurd, fascist policy of putting us in jail. But if they came out for legalizing even medical marijuana – and quoted in HT to boot – they'd risk being banished from the land of the "serious," caricatured as loopy-grinned space cases floating several feet off the ground while passing a bong to some tie-dyed burnout. Ethan Nadelmann of the Drug Policy Alliance, who has met with several of the candidates, says all were willing to support a minimal agenda of lowering mandatory-minimum sentences, reducing the disparity between penalties for crack and powder cocaine, and "paying lip service" to treatment instead of prisons. But so far, there are no Gary Johnsons running. While Congress' most rabid Drug Warriors are mainly Republicans, Democrats often want to appear compassionate without risking being seen as "soft on drugs." That often results in positions like that of an Ohio Congressmember who, in a letter obtained by NORML, wrote a constituent that he understood how medical marijuana helped severely sick people – but that legalizing it would send teenagers the wrong message about pot. Some activists are more optimistic. "How does the Democratic Party define itself as different from the Republicans?" asks John Hartman of the Ohio Cannabis Society. "This is one issue where they could." Ben Gaines of Students for a Sensible Drug Policy says that depends on "if we can get the candidates to understand that it's beneficial for them to talk at least about medical marijuana." But, observes Nadelmann, despite the 70-80 percent support for medical marijuana in polls, the cannabis constituency hasn't organized to the point where politicians have to pay attention to it. Here's how the current presidential hopefuls roll up. Rep. Dennis Kucinich (Ohio) Kucinich, a relative longshot, has taken the strongest stance of any Democrat in the race so far. He told reporters in May that medical marijuana should be available "to any patient who needs it to alleviate pain and suffering." He is not a cosponsor of Rep. Barney Frank's bill to let states legalize medical marijuana, but has signed onto a measure that would allow defendants in federal pot trials to claim medical use. The former Cleveland mayor, who is campaigning as an antiwar, working-class liberal – he advocates a Cabinet Department of Peace and a government-run universal health care system – is a recent convert to drug-law reform; in 1998, he voted for a House resolution condemning medical-marijuana initiatives. "Dennis didn't come out of the closet until recently," says John Hartman. Still, says Ethan Nadelmann, "Kucinich is the one who's jumping out." He's worked to repeal the Higher Education Act's ban on student loans for convicted pot-smokers, and his campaign Website declares that the War on Drugs "produces many casualties, but benefits only the prison-industrial complex." "We're still developing our policy on 'the drug war,'" a Kucinich campaign spokesperson tells HIGH TIMES, "but we are looking at the direction European countries and Canada have been moving in, and find that more rational than the ineffective criminal-justice approach in our country." Sen. John Kerry (Massachusetts) One of the race's leading liberals and top two fundraisers, Kerry told the New Yorker in 2002 that he had smoked pot a few times. But "he hasn't been supportive," says Bill Downing of Mass CANN, especially when compared to fellow Massachusetts Democrat Barney Frank. The Senator has told constituents he supports retaining the HEA's student-loan ban, notes Downing, and pushed for more interdiction during his 16 years on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He did vote against the Methamphetamine Anti-Proliferation Act of 1999 (which could have outlawed publishing pot-growing advice), and may have indicated some support for medical marijuana. However, according to Allen St. Pierre of NORML, Kerry would not answer Dr. Lester Grinspoon's repeated requests that he sponsor Frank's medical-pot bill in the Senate. Sen. Joseph Lieberman (Connecticut) Al Gore's running mate in the 2000 election, Lieberman was a sponsor of the RAVE Act in 2002, which as enacted this year makes it easier for the Feds to prosecute rave promoters – or anyone letting people get high in their house, if you read the law literally. Arguably the most conservative of the nine Democrats in the race, he did oppose congressional attempts to suppress DC's 1998 medical-marijuana vote, but he also sponsored a resolution condemning state medical-pot initiatives. His censorious stand on video games and popular music also puts him in untrustworthy territory. Rep. Richard Gephardt (Missouri) Gephardt, the former House minority leader, has concentrated his campaign on economic issues and health care. He doesn't seem to have spent much time thinking about drugs, says Nadelmann. "I've never heard him make a statement one way or the other," says Dan Viets of Missouri NORML. However, he voted for the 1998 resolution against medical marijuana, which passed 310-93. Former Gov. Howard Dean (Vermont) Dean's strong opposition to the Iraq war and support for gay marriage have won him credentials as a liberal, but his legislative arm-twisting and veto threats killed Vermont's medical-marijuana bill in 2002. "My opposition to medical marijuana is based on science, not based on ideology," he told the liberaloasis.com Website in May, adding that medical use should be approved by the Food and Drug Administration, not by "political means." The former governor's rhetoric is good, says Nadelmann – he has called the Drug War a failure, and criticized mandatory-minimum sentences – but on the issues that actually crossed his desk, medical marijuana and methadone maintenance, he was "among the worst." Sen. Bob Graham (Florida) Graham has the strongest Drug Warrior record of any of the nine. He sponsored the Ecstasy Prevention Act of 2000. As governor of Florida – during what St. Pierre calls "the Miami Vice years" – he claimed credit for the state's first mandatory-minimum law for drug smugglers. His Website advocates building more prisons. However, he may not be completely closed-minded about medical marijuana. A coauthor of the 2001 PATRIOT Act, Graham has criticized Bush for invading Iraq instead of shoring up domestic security and going after al-Qaeda. Sen. John Edwards (North Carolina) Edwards told the San Francisco Chronicle in May that he supported more study on medical marijuana, but "wouldn't change the law now" – a stance St. Pierre calls "weaselly." A first-term senator, he appears to be positioning himself as a Clintonesque candidate, a vaguely populist lawyer who can appeal to both Southerners and liberals and has already raised over $7 million. "I don't think he has the grit," says North Carolina medical-marijuana activist Jean Marlowe. Edwards "did inquire why I couldn't have my Marinol," when she protested federal prison authorities denying her medication, she relates – but so did Republican Rep. Charles Taylor, a medical-marijuana foe. Rev. Al Sharpton (New York) The New York activist hasn't taken a specific position on pot, but has been active in the movement to reform the state's harsh Rockefeller drug laws. Sharpton has also been up front in protesting police killing people in botched drug busts, such as Alberta Spruill, a 57-year-old Harlem woman who died of a heart attack – literally scared to death – after police smashed in her door and set off a stun grenade in an oops-wrong-address raid on her apartment in May. Former Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun (Illinois) Moseley-Braun, the first black woman elected to the Senate, has verbally supported decriminalizing pot – though not legalizing it – since the 1970s, but "never did anything to make it happen" during her 1993-99 term, says St. Pierre, and her staff made it clear that it wasn't one of her priorities. Her main issues have been criticizing Bush for invading Iraq, endangering civil liberties, and cutting taxes on the rich. Steven Wishnia is former news editor of High Times. Source: AlterNet Author: Steven Wishnia, AlterNet Published: June 11, 2003 Copyright: 2003 Independent Media Institute Contact: info@alternet.org Website: http://www.alternet.org/ DL: http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=16124 Related Articles & Web Sites: NORML: http://www.norml.org/ MassCann: http://www.masscann.org/ High Times: http://www.hightimes.com/ RxMarijuana: http://www.rxmarihuana.com/ Missouri NORML: http://www.gstlnorml.org/ Drug Policy Alliance: http://www.drugpolicy.org/ Ohio Cannabis Society: http://www.ohiocannabis.org/