Oregon Will Vote on Legalizing Home-Grown Marijuana : Many Controversial Election Initiatives Dotting the Nation

John Sajo looks like a choirboy, and he sounds like he’s selling Bibles, but any angelic allegory ends when the woman seated next to him in the television studio says: “John, you lie through your teeth.”

Sajo is embroiled in one of the most controversial ballot measure battles in the country this fall: the Oregon marijuana initiative. Despite rising fears about drug use, he hopes voters here will legalize home-grown marijuana for private use by adults.

“When people grow their own, we’ll be taking the money out of the hands of drug dealers,” he said during the television debate.

“What kind of Oregon do we want?” asked Sajo’s debate opponent, Rosanna Creighton, representing Oregon Free From Drug Abuse. “Do we want to be the marijuana capital of America?”

40 Initiatives on Ballots

Similar heated exchanges dot the nation as voters consider about 40 initiatives, which were put on state ballots by petition, and more than 100 referendums submitted by state legislatures.

The propositions, which frequently provoke more voter interest than campaigns for office on the same Nov. 4 ballot, deal with questions varying from restricting state financing for abortions to legalized gambling to additional limits on local taxes.

As usual, California leads the nation in highly visible measures. Two of them--one making English the state’s official language and the other that would quarantine people who carry the AIDS virus--”are almost landmark in their future implications,” said Sue Thomas, president of Initiative Information Services Inc., based in Englewood, Colo.

But she also rates the Oregon marijuana proposition, one of 12 measures on that ballot, in the same category. National attention has also focused on Idaho, where labor leaders are battling the National Right to Work Committee over a measure that would strike down the state’s right-to-work law, which makes it illegal for an employer to require a worker to pay dues to a union in order to keep a job.

Biggest Vote on Abortion

And this Election Day will be “the biggest, most widespread vote on abortion ever,” said David D. Schmidt, director of the Initiative Resource Center in Washington.

Among the measures being voted on this year:

--Six states--Florida, Idaho, North Dakota, South Dakota, Kansas and Montana--will decide on state lottery propositions. Already, 22 states and the District of Columbia have state lotteries, so this year could result in more than half of the states’ having lotteries. Florida voters will also decide whether counties should be allowed to legalize casino gambling. Parimutuel wagering is on the ballot in Missouri and Kansas, and Oregon voters will decide whether to legalize charity raffles.

--In a sweeping anti-tax initiative, Montanans will vote on a constitutional amendment abolishing real and personal property taxes. The measure, proposed by four, proverbial “little old ladies” from Corvallis, Mont., would also require voter approval for any sales tax and any increase in sales taxes or personal income taxes. A competing initiative would limit property taxes to their 1986 levels.

Tax-Related Initiatives

“There’s a continuation of the tax revolt out there,” Schmidt said of the 11 tax-related initiatives nationwide.

In Massachusetts, a tax cap measure would hold state tax revenue growth to the level of growth in total wages and salaries of Massachusetts citizens, and also would repeal a 7.5% income tax surcharge.

Colorado Proposition 4, which Gov. Richard D. Lamm has called “public enemy No. 1,” would require any new taxes to be put to a vote in a general election.

Oregon voters will consider four tax proposals. One backed by the state’s largest teachers’ union would introduce a 5% sales tax but limit property tax rates. A rival measure supported by Oregon Taxpayers United would limit annual property tax hikes to 2%. Another would provide a $25,000 homestead exemption, and a companion measure would raise the state income tax to make up lost revenues.

Protecting the Unborn

--Four states--Arkansas, Oregon, Massachusetts and Rhode Island--will consider measures that would prohibit spending state money for abortions. The Arkansas and Rhode Island measures also would direct the state to protect the health and safety of every unborn, from conception to birth, in accordance with the Constitution. This provision is part of a growing national trend to reinstate state bans on abortion in the anticipation that a changing Supreme Court will allow such laws.

A cutoff of state financing for abortion--only 14 states finance them now--would encourage right-to-life activists who say a broad swath of the American public thinks abortion has gone too far.

“Arkansas has broad-based fundamentalism and strong Protestant, pro-life people, and while Oregon has some pretty strong pro-life people, Portland is more typical of the West Coast, liberal mentality,” said J. C. Willke of the National Right to Life organization.

“If we can win there, we will be extremely pleased.”

‘A Hidden Agenda’

But Pat Etzell, campaign coordinator for Oregon Taxpayers for Choice, said: “Our feeling is, this is an effort on the part of those who want to outlaw abortion . . . to get their way. They’ve been unable to get their way in the courts. . . . We do feel there’s a hidden agenda to completely outlaw abortion.”

In 1978, Oregon voters defeated a similar measure by a 51.7% vote. A poll last month by the Oregonian newspaper indicated 41% were in favor of the measure and 50% opposed, and 9% undecided.

--The Idaho right-to-work proposition is seen as a major test of will between union leaders, who are trying to demonstrate political clout, and anti-union forces who sense that the union movement is weakening. The law was passed in 1985 by the Republican-controlled Legislature over the veto of Democratic Gov. John V. Evans, making Idaho the 21st state with a right-to-work law. Union members gathered 60,000 signatures to force a referendum this fall.

‘Freeloading’ Feared

The critics of the law argue that it will lower wages and allow non-union workers at companies with union contracts to “freeload” by not paying dues to the unions that secure wages and benefits at the bargaining table. Proponents say the law will help attract new companies to bolster Idaho’s sagging economy.

The debate has drawn national attention, including appeals to uphold the law from President Reagan and actor Charlton Heston. In 1958, a similar law was narrowly defeated in Idaho, winning 49% of the vote.

--Arizona voters will decide an initiative amending the state Constitution to authorize the Legislature to set limits on awards for damages other than monetary losses in civil lawsuits.

Initiative Questions

The Oregon ballot this year is a virtual compendium of initiative questions nationwide, including proposed restrictions on radioactive wastes and a shutdown of the state’s only nuclear power plant, along with the tax and abortion questions.

But the marijuana initiative has special attention because the state led the nation in decriminalization of small quantities of the drug in 1973.

“We think it’s a critical thing,” Kevin Zeese, national director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, said of the Oregon marijuana proposal. “It’s the only place in the country where there are options to the drug war. And a victory will affect our activists--invigorate them tremendously, and you’ll see other states doing it.”

“It’s very much a test,” said state Rep. Paul V. Phillips, head of Citizens Against Marijuana Legalization. “If we lose, we’ve got a nightmare!”

‘Start Drug Education’

Sajo said: “We are trying to ask the fundamental question: Should adults go to jail for growing or smoking marijuana in the privacy of their homes? This is the first vote after 50 years of prohibition of marijuana. We’re arguing that in this country we’ve got to stop the drug war and start drug education.”

The Oregon measure places no limit on the number of marijuana plants that can be grown by an individual, prompting severe criticism of the measure from law enforcement officials.