Perkins comes out strong against pot

Tuesday, Feb. 8, 2005 | 9:44 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- On the opening day of the Legislature, Assembly Speaker Richard Perkins declared that the House will not legalize marijuana.

Despite a citizens petition supporting legalization, Perkins, a Henderson Police deputy chief, said he would not allow it because crime and drugs go hand in hand and legalizing marijuana would make matters worse.

But those who back allowing adults to have one ounce of marijuana say Perkins has it backwards.

Kami Dempsey, spokeswoman for the Committee to Regulate and Control Marijuana, said the initiative petition "would start to take marijuana out of the hands of drug dealers and put control where it belongs, with the state."

The committee gathered 69,261 signatures of registered voters on an initiative petition that was presented Monday to the opening session of the Legislature.

In his opening address to the Assembly Monday, Perkins, D-Henderson, said, "We are not going to legalize marijuana." He said, "After putting criminals in jail for more than 20 years, I can tell you legalizing pot is the wrong thing to do -- now or ever."

More than 80 percent of those in prison, he said, are drug users.

"The link between drug use and crime is clear," he said. "I'm not going to make it any easier -- not on my watch."

The Legislature must approve the initiative within 40 days or it will go on the 2006 ballot for voters to decide.

Sen. Barbara Cegavske, R-Las Vegas, echoed the same crime-linked-to-drugs sentiment. She is chairman of the Legislative Operations and Elections Committee where the initiative would probably go if it reached the Senate.

She said she has worked in WestCare, the drug rehabilitation center in Las Vegas and she feels marijuana is a "gateway drug" to harder narcotics. "Legalizing it would be harmful to society," she said.

But if the initiative gets into her committee, she said it would get a fair hearing. She said she does not know how the other committee members feel. But she noted that voters in 2002 soundly rejected a proposal to allow up to three ounces of marijuana for adults. That vote was 305,479 to 196,371, or 61 percent to 39 percent, against legalization.

Bruce Mirken, a spokesman for the National Marijuana Policy Project, said Perkins, Cegavske and other opponents of legalization are ill informed.

Dempsey said Perkins has missed the "entire point of the initiative," which is to control its distribution.

"The system is broke, on that we all agree," she said. "This initiative would go a long way towards helping get marijuana out of our schools. Well over half of high school seniors have used marijuana."

She said the only proven way to reduce teen use, as with cigarettes, is to regulate it and control the sale of it. "That is what our initiative really does."

Dempsey said she hopes the Legislature would debate the merits. But if they don't, she said, then "the citizens of Nevada will have a chance to weigh in on this subject, and we're confident given all the facts they will realize that this initiative is the right thing to do."