Bennett Urges Alaska Voters to Ban Marijuana

Drug policy director William J. Bennett wrapped up his two-day anti-marijuana campaign in Alaska’s two biggest cities Friday, beseeching Alaskans to ban cannabis in the Last Frontier.

Although Americans have paid little attention to the fact that pot has been legal in Alaska for 15 years, Bennett predicted that the state would become a mecca for drug users unless Alaskans approve a Nov. 6 ballot measure making marijuana possession a crime punishable by up to 90 days in jail.

Bennett took President Bush’s war on drugs to the northern front Thursday and Friday, speaking in Anchorage and Fairbanks to occasionally receptive, usually polite, but sometimes hostile audiences who criticized Bennett for meddling and essentially told him to mind his own business.

Sensitive to criticism of interfering in the affairs of an individualistic state, Bennett repeatedly said he did not intend to tell Alaskans how to vote. However, over and over Bennett warned of dire consequences unless Alaska ended its 15-year-old status as the only state that permits adults to possess small amounts of marijuana.

“I fear that if Alaskans do not vote yes on Proposition 2, this will be interpreted as a signal to those in the drug world, in the drug culture, that this is a congenial place for drugs,” Bennett said.

“People in the drug business may be wicked, they may be imperfect, they may just be mean, they may actually be evil, but they’re often not stupid. When they try to figure out where to go, they look around and say, ‘Who doesn’t care? Who’s soft on drugs? Who thinks they’re perfectly all right? . . . And that’s where they go,” Bennett said.

Marijuana was legalized in Alaska after the state Supreme Court ruled in 1975 that the privacy clause of the Alaska Constitution protected the personal use of the drug at home. A unanimous court said private pot use posed no serious harm to society or users.

Legislators later set a limit of four ounces as legal to grow or possess. Possession of more, or sale or possession of any amount by minors, is illegal. No other drugs are legal in Alaska.