Anchorage Daily News

October 09, 2000

He lives upstairs from the campaign office of Free Hemp in Alaska, in a commercial building. He has no car, no social life, no salary.

He dresses in campaign T-shirts featuring Alaska flags with pot leaves in place of stars. He sometimes looks like he's not sleeping well. He's happy.

There's not a thing in the world I'd rather be doing than stopping the drug war, the Indiana native declared recently, sitting in the brightly painted coffee shop one door down from his office.

An enormous yellow sign has been painted on the south side of the building that houses both the cafe and the campaign office, urging Alaskans to vote yes on Proposition 5.

In 1998, Alaskans approved a medical marijuana initiative, but what they'll see on the state ballot Nov. 7 would go much further. The citizens' initiative, which Anders peddled on a clipboard last year, would change state law to remove criminal penalties for adults who grow marijuana, distribute it or use it in private places.

It would also grant amnesty to people convicted of state marijuana crimes and convene a panel to consider restitution for them, although marijuana would still be illegal under federal law.

Maybe because the initiative is so broad, four different campaigns registered with the state to work for passage of Prop. 5, and one has formed in opposition. In Anchorage, the two main pro-legalization groups are Hemp 2000 and Anders' campaign, each with its own emphasis.

They (Hemp 2000) are working more on the hemp-will-save-the-world thing, Anders said.

His bottom line is that marijuana use among adults is none of the government's business.

Several volunteers and campaign workers at Free Hemp have been convicted of drug crimes. Or, as a committed Libertarian like Anders sees it, they're victims of the war on drugs.

Jeremy Irvin, 37, says he has a brother who has spent the past 10 years in prison for drugs. Irvin said he left his high-rise maintenance business in Minnesota a few weeks ago to help Anders end the war on drugs.

Look, I believe these guys, he said softly. Because Al Anders, he means it.

He said he doesn't smoke pot and doesn't believe others should, But I also don't believe that you should be put in jail for it.

Every Tuesday evening, another campaign devoted to legalizing hemp holds public invited meetings in a spare, fluorescent-lighted room on Denali Street downtown.

Hemp, they say, can literally save the planet. It can fuel our cars, heat our homes, feed our children. It can be made into clothing, paper, lumber, bricks and plastic.

When you use motor oil from hemp, you can pour it on the ground and it won't kill all the grass around it, said R.L. Marcy, a paralegal who is the chairwoman for Hemp 2000. She wears big round glasses, rings on almost every finger and a gold-nugget watch. Her first name is Ronda but everyone calls her Marcy.

THE OPPONENTS

The campaign opposing Prop. 5 has no storefront headquarters.

A dozen or more opponents meet weekly in the offices of Key Bank, said Aaron Harrop, co-chairman of No on 5. He is a Wasilla substance abuse counselor, a scoutmaster and a father.

This is Dad, he said when he answered his home phone this week. He said he has nothing against the industrial uses of hemp, although he is skeptical of the claims.

What I'm against is making the drug legal, setting the convicts free and then not having any real legislation to control it, he said.

He said he doesn't believe marijuana is evil. But it does have some negative effects, he said, such as a motivational syndrome.

Basically it's not a bad product, but it's not a healthy product and it's not going to do all the things they say it will, he said.

Harrop has debated the marijuana proposition on radio talk shows, as has Wev Shea, a former U.S. attorney for Alaska who now runs a private law practice upstairs from F Street Station, a downtown bar.

Harrop said his campaign has raised only a few thousand dollars, and he feels it is facing an uphill battle.