DENVER WEIGHS POT PROPOSAL

DENVER -- The nickname Mile High City could soon take on an entirely
new connotation.

Denver voters will decide Tuesday whether it will be legal for adults
over 21 to possess up to an ounce of marijuana. Seattle, Oakland,
Calif., and a couple of college towns already have laws making
individual possession the lowest law enforcement priority.

Supporters in Denver have launched a "Make Denver Safer" campaign that
contends the change will help curb domestic violence because adults
will opt for pot over alcohol.

"There's no doubt that if people choose to use marijuana instead of
alcohol we would not have the same number of problems," said Mason
Tvert, the 23-year-old campaign organizer.

The argument has angered local officials.

"It's a deceptive and deceitful campaign," said Councilman Charlie
Brown, who spent a recent Saturday night ripping the signs up from
public parks and medians -- where they are banned -- and throwing them
in the garbage. "Domestic violence is not on the ballot. Alcohol is
not on the ballot. Marijuana is on the ballot."

Despite the attention the campaign has drawn, critics of the proposal
are quick to point out that a "yes" vote won't matter much. City
police will simply file marijuana possession charges under state law,
which carries up to a $100 fine and a mandatory $100 drug offender
surcharge fine, said David Broadwell, a Denver assistant attorney.

From 2002 to August of this year, some 6,800 people in Denver were
charged with possession of less than one ounce of marijuana, according
to the city attorney's Office. Of those, only 74 were charged under
the city ordinance. Authorities say an ounce can be used to make about
60 joints, or marijuana cigarettes.

"The initiative isn't going to change the way we do business. Ninety-
eight percent are charged with state penalties. If the ballot
initiative is approved then it will be 100 percent of cases," said
Vince DeCroce, director of prosecution for the attorney's office.

Tvert argues that the vote is more about changing the image of
marijuana than anything else.

"All you hear is that marijuana is the devil and it's going to cause
you to ruin your life," Tvert said. "And that's not true. We are
simply trying to inject some of the other side into the argument,
because currently it's been kept out.

"What is it about adult marijuana users that is so
scary?"

The campaign in Denver and similar, nonbinding initiatives passed by
students on two of the largest college campuses in the state are only
part of larger plan to move the state to a system of taxation and
regulation for the drug, Tvert said.

"The thing is, we can't get there without doing this," Tvert said. "We
need the power of the people of Denver to lobby the state."

Bruce Mirkin of the Marijuana Policy Project, one of the largest
national groups that opposes jail time for pot use, said change often
comes from the local level.

"It's part of starting the discussion, and I think hopefully creating
momentum for at least the broader society to have the conversation
about the country's marijuana laws," he said.

Last year, 64 percent of Oakland voters told police to make marijuana
possession its lowest enforcement priority and required the city to
develop a plan for licensing and taxing the sale, use and cultivation
of pot for private use. A similar vote is on Tuesday's ballot in the
Colorado ski resort town of Telluride.

In Denver, critics of the proposal are wary of the reputation a "yes"
vote might bring to the Colorado capital.

"People will flock to Denver to use marijuana," said Jeffrey Sweetin,
head of the Rocky Mountain Division of the Drug Enforcement
Administration.

Even if possession of one ounce is legal, people would still have to
illegally buy the drug, Sweetin said, and "people don't realize all
that money goes to organized crime."