Advocates for liberalizing the nation's drug laws met in Anaheim on Saturday and discussed marijuana arrests, an appeals court ruling allowing California doctors to recommend marijuana to sick patients and the defeat of marijuana legalization in Nevada.
The three-day meeting was aimed at regrouping and discussing new ideas, said Bruce Mirken, a spokesman for the Washington, D.C.-based Marijuana Policy Project, which sponsored the conference.
The group teamed for the first time with Students for Sensible Drug Policy, a 5,000-member organization with chapters in 200 high schools and colleges nationwide. Of the 400 people at the conference, most were students.
Sandwiched between seminars, movie producer Aaron Russo ("Trading Places" and "The Rose") gave a raucous talk that had most of the young luncheon audience on its feet hooting and clapping.
"Well, as you know, I'm here to talk about that terrible, terrible drug known as marijuana," said Russo.
He admitted getting high on marijuana with Hollywood celebrities, many of whom might lose their jobs if their marijuana use was common knowledge.
"Our laws were meant to protect us," Russo said.
"But I have friends who have been abused, jailed and exploited by our government and marginalized in our society by these laws."
He suggested that it is time for drug reform groups to make a political statement, and that they could start in California by recalling Gov. Gray Davis.
He accused the governor of failing to help sick people, despite the passage of Proposition 215 in 1996.
The initiative permits patients to use marijuana legally if they have a doctor's recommendation.
However, there has been confusion about the legality of the medical marijuana measure, because possession and use are illegal under federal law.
California marijuana reformers recently have become more active after federal agents raided a Santa Cruz medical marijuana collective Sept. 5, arresting three people and confiscating 130 plants.
In an act of defiance, elected city officials, including the Santa Cruz mayor, joined with the Women's Alliance for Medical Marijuana to dispense the drug to sick patients two weeks later.
Students Frustrated
Many in the audience were college students like Martin Baer, a 20-year-old junior at the University of Maryland in College Park. He got involved with a local chapter of Students for Sensible Drug Policy in reaction to a drug provision of the Higher Education Act of 1998.
