US NV: The Fortunes Of Mary Jane

- -- All drugs ( including heroin, cocaine and opium) were legal and available without prescription in the United States until the passage of the Harrison Narcotics Act of 1914, which subjected many medicines to federal regulation. Marijuana remained legal in the United States until 1937.

- -- In the 1970s, some states ( notably Alaska) legalized personal use of marijuana, but by the 1990s pot had been almost universally recriminalized although penalties for simple possession were eased.

- -- Medical marijuana initiatives passed with heavy majorities in California and Arizona in 1996, although the Arizona Legislature nullified that state's voter-approved initiative. ( An Arizona group called The People Have Spoken is attempting to reverse the legislature's action.) Several "cannabis-buyers clubs" in the San Francisco and Los Angeles areas remain in operation, although they face court challenges on various grounds and opposition from some law enforcement agencies.

- -- Petitions to legalize, for medical purposes, the use of marijuana are circulating in Nevada, Washington, Oregon, Colorado, Maine and the District of Columbia. An Alaska measure has already qualified for the November ballot.

- -- In Arkansas, petitioners are trying to qualify a radical ballot measure that legalizes marijuana as "both an agricultural product and a recreational intoxicant" and forbids the Legislature from passing laws prohibiting its possession or use by adults.

- -- In Florida, a constitutional amendment effort is under way to place medicalization on the 2000 ballot, despite rejection of such a measure by the state's Constitution Review Committee.

- -- An ABC News/Discovery Channel poll, conducted by Chilton Research Services, in May 1997 found that 69 percent of Americans agree that doctors should be allowed to prescribe marijuana as they do any other controlled drug. A Luntz Research national poll in November showed 62 percent support for medical marijuana, and other polls have shown similar results. Two recent polls undertaken for Americans for Medical Rights show about the same level of support in Nevada for legalizing marijuana for medical purposes.

- -- These same polls and others, however, show overwhelming opposition to legalizing marijuana for non-medical reasons.

- -- Illicit marijuana use is on the rise in the United States. According to the latest figures from the federal Drug Enforcement Administration, marijuana use doubled among 10th graders since 1992, to 34 percent. According to the University of Michigan's respected annual "Monitoring the Future Study" of drug use, nearly half ( 44.9 percent) of American youngsters have smoked pot by the 12th grade

- -- About 60 million Americans have tried marijuana at least once, including President Clinton, Vice President Al Gore and Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. By contrast, there are about 50 million current U.S. cigarette smokers.

- -- Outside of California, the only Americans who may legally use marijuana are eight ill people who, under the 1970s-era "compassionate use" program, receive marijuana grown on a 7.5-acre federal pot farm at the Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Mississippi. The government dope is shipped by plane to Raleigh, N.C., where it is machine-rolled into cigarettes, packed in cannisters of 300 joints each and sent to medical centers for patient pick-up. The Bush administration junked the "compassionate use" project in 1992, but patients already enrolled in the program ( their numbers had dwindled to eight by late 1997) still receive the drug legally from Uncle Sam. When these eight die, the residual "compassionate use" program dies with them.