TAKING THE INITIATIVE, OVERVIEW

Between 2001 and 2005, a total of seven (credible) drug policy reform ballot initiatives were attempted in the State of Michigan.

Six of these were municipal initiatives involving medical marijuana, all of which were run by local reformers with assistance from some national sources, primarily the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) in Washington DC, whose primary funder is billionaire Peter Lewis.

The other one was a statewide ballot initiative organized by the California-based Campaign for New Drug Policies (CNDP), funded by billionaires George Soros, Mr. Lewis and multi-millionaire, John Sperling. The goal of this ambitious initiative was to make "treatment rather then incarceration" for drug crimes part of the Michigan Constitution. The language was modeled after the famous "Proposition 36," which is now the law in California.

Of these seven initiatives, four ultimately made it to the ballot, and each passed by more than 60% of the vote on election day.

Two of the local medical marijuana initiatives, as well as the statewide CNDP proposal failed to attain ballot status.

It is noteworthy that none of these failures was caused by lack of valid petition signatures, or failure to gather the signatures in the required time frame. The efforts failed because "defects" were subsequently found by the courts and/or public officials in the way the petition language was drafted before a single signature was ever gathered! In one instance, a local court ruled that in addition to defective language, the entire petition itself was "facially flawed."

In any event, while it is always more gratifying to succeed on the effort and win at the polls, the best teaching experiences any serious reformer can have is to bear the brunt of failure and feel the sting of defeat.

Besides keeping the reformer humble and alert, defeat is an opportunity to get to know oneself and the political system in a myriad of ways. Way that would never manifest themselves otherwise.

Viewed from this perspective, I believe it is at least as valuable to do a post-mortem on the three ballot initiative failures here in Michigan - and the lessons gleaned from these defeats.

Our first failure, in 2002, is what we call "Detroit #1" (because there will be a "Detroit #2.") The second, in 2003, is CNDP's "treatment rather than incarceration" plan. The third was in 2005 in the City of Flint.

But take heart, there will also be a couple of inspiring success stories along the way.

Continue to Detroit #1 or back to the Index