TAKING THE INITIATIVE, DETROIT #1

In February 2001, as the result of a turn for the worse in the local Republican Party hierarchy (in which I was involved for some years) it was time to get another political life.

There are many ways one can be a catalyst for political and social change, besides being an elected official or political party honcho.

Single-issue politics is one alternative where the individual can become a serious player and accomplish something - without having to be elected to office, receive an appointment or, indeed, even ask anyone's permission.

In Michigan the usual, popular, single-issue causes such as abortion, gun rights, and environmentalism that I might have considered, already had been well-organized - with established leadership structures in my community.

The one area there seemed to be a vacuum was in drug policy reform.

As a clean cut, discrete marijuana user since I took my first toke in 1970, I was well aware of the consistent pattern of dishonesty and hypocrisy from the leadership of both major political parties and their corporate enablers and sycophants on the is issue.

Being self-employed and reasonably affluent, I was in a position to publicly take on drug policy reform with little fear of economic or social retaliation.

While I did not have the money or political connections to finance a statewide ballot initiative or get the legislature to do my bidding, I did have the wherewithal to make something happen in my hometown of Detroit, Michigan.

Cutting to the chase, I decided to lead - and personally finance - a ballot initiative to make medical use of marijuana the "lowest law enforcement priority" of the City of Detroit.

On a surface level, this appeared to be relatively easy. The signature requirement was surprisingly low - 3% of the vote for mayor in the last general election. This translated into just over 6,000 signatures to make the ballot.

While I had mainly identified with the Republican Party for pragmatic, political reasons, my true political ideology was libertarian. Consequently, I was known and respected by a good number of quality Democrats and liberals. Having donated thousands of dollars, and almost as many hours of volunteer time, over the years to politicians and causes of all persuasions, I knew I could count on at lest some establishment backing for a drug policy reform effort in a Democratic Party controlled town like Detroit. Especially is the issue was limited to "medical" marijuana.

Once the decision was made to proceed, I filed the proper paperwork with the Wayne County Elections Commission, to form a legally registered ballot initiative committee which I named The Detroit Coalition for Compassionate Care (DCCC).

I then proceeded to tap into the network of political personalities with whom I was acquainted. The idea was to persuade these persons to become members of the DCCC "Steering Committee."

I promised every potential steering committee member that they would not have to do any work, or attend meetings. All I wanted was permission to list their names on our website and letterhead as supporters of the initiative. If the media were to call, they would just simply say they supported the idea of making medical exceptions to anti-marijuana ordinances.

Using this approach, I was able to persuade, among others, the then US House of Representatives Minority Leader, Michigan congressman David Bonior, former Detroit Police Chief Isaiah McKinnon, State Senators Hansen Clarke and Burton LeLand, State Representative LaMar Lemmons III, county Commissioner George Cushinberry, ACLU Board Member Eugene Perrin, MD, African Nationalist leader and Chairman of the Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality Ron Scott, and Jeff Montgomery, head of the Detroit based Triangle Foundation (Michigan's top gay/lesbian advocacy group.) This virtual Who's-Who of Detroit politics became the DCCC Steering Committee.

Elated by the support I was able to conjure up, I was now under the illusion that success was all but certain.

In retrospect, all this time and energy would have been more wisely invested in finding a top notch election lawyer because, unfortunately, the DCCC search for legal counsel did not go well from the beginning.

Our ignorance was such that we had no idea election law was such a specialty field in Michigan, and how politicized some so-called legal issues can be.

In fact, I called every attorney I knew in search of one both knowledgeable in election law and willing to provide professional advice on our Detroit medical marijuana ballot initiative.

Barristers from big, politically-connected firms in Detroit, flatly turned down the business. It was explained that the issue was politically "too hot to handle," or that marijuana reform was "not the image we are trying to project."

Many attorneys simply said they did not have the requisite expertise, nor did they know of anyone who did. In one moment of dark humor, a friendly lawyer chuckled and said "come back to me if you have any tax problems down the road, Tim."

Finally, in desperation, I began calling my DCCC Steering Committee members for advice. Eventually one member told me to "call Joe Jones [the fictitious name of a real person] and use my name. If he doesn't want to help you, I want to know."

Well, with that kind of "recommendation," Mr. Jones immediately agreed to help. In fact, it turned out this man did, indeed, have some limited experience with a ballot initiative, albeit on another issue and in a different part of Michigan.

So, with the legal counsel problem now (apparently) resolved, a petition model was quickly put together.

The language was based on a successful ballot initiative passed in Mendocino County, California, making the growing of up to 25 marijuana plants the "lowest law enforcement priority" of the County Sheriff. The only difference was that our proposal was limited to medical use of marijuana, i.e., growing up to three plants, or possession of the equivalent in dried marijuana, for medical use the lowest law enforcement priority of the City of Detroit.

Mr. Jones and I were very careful to do the best we could to follow the exact letter of city law in putting our petition document together.

That done, the next step was to gather 6,144 valid signatures within the 180-day time limit set by law, and submit them no less than the legal minimum 140 days prior to the next regularly scheduled election.

In our situation, I decided, almost immediately, to use paid signature gatherers for this task.

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