The marijuana legalizers, including the billionaires Walters vilifies, don't have much kinder things to say about him. In fact, for old rich men, they can sound a lot like Tupac. One of them, Sperling, 81, is founder of the highly profitable nationwide chain the University of Phoenix. He has spent $13 million on drug-reform campaigns and lots of other money on other pet projects, including cloning his cat. "Mr. Walters is a pathetic drug-war soul who is defending a whole catalog of horrors he's indifferent to," Sperling says from his office in Phoenix, Ariz. "The government's drug-reform policy is driven by a Fundamentalist Christian sense of morality that sees any of these illegal substances used as evil." Sperling says he smoked pot to combat pain associated with the cancer he fought in the 1960s.

Lewis, 68, former CEO of Progressive, an insurance company, doesn't despise the czar quite as much, but he has been battling him even harder. The reasons for Lewis are more straightforward. He has been referred to by colleagues as a "functional pothead." He spends half the year on a $16.5 million, 255-ft. yacht, where he smokes pot regularly; he even got arrested in New Zealand on drug charges a few years ago, he told the Plain Dealer. He is one of the main backers of the radical Nevada proposal, having given heaps of money to the Marijuana Policy Project, which is running Question 9 there. "The absurdity of its illegality has been clear to me for some time. I learned about pot from my kids and realized it was a lot better than Scotch, and I loved the Scotch. Then I went to my doctor, and he said, 'I'm thrilled. You're drinking too much. You're much better off doing pot than drinking.'"

Soros (who has smoked pot but no longer does) declined to be interviewed, and like the rest of the troika, he won't debate Walters. They are probably refusing for two reasons: 1) they would likely lose, since none of them are politicians; and 2) if you were going around the world on a 255-ft. yacht, would you list "Drug Czar" as one of your ports of call?

So instead they fight federal policy with initiative after initiative, while also defending local pro-pot laws. Their side got a major media boost in California in September, when federal agents busted Santa Cruz's Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana in an early-morning raid. The feds dragged the farm's owners, who were legally growing pot under California law, to a federal building in San Jose for breaking federal law and held a paraplegic resident at the farm for hours. "I opened my eyes to see five federal agents pointing assault rifles at my head. 'Get your hands over your head. Get up. Get up.' I took the respirator off my face, and I explained to them that I'm paralyzed," said Suzanne Pheil, 44, who is disabled by the effects of postpolio syndrome. Her story was broadcast everywhere, since the pro-pot people had basically been waiting for her to be harassed, punching every phone number on their media list minutes after the raid. Pot people, surprisingly, can move pretty fast when they want to.

The bust couldn't have gone better for the pot folks. California attorney general Bill Lockyer fired off an angry letter to DEA chief Asa Hutchinson, who wrote back saying that federal law allows the feds to seize pot. "During the Clinton years they didn't do this," says Lockyer. "It disappointed me that they would be using precious resources to act like a bunch of bullies." San Jose police chief William Lansdowne was so annoyed by the raid that he withdrew his officers from the local DEA task force, ending 15 years of close work. Even Governor Gray Davis, who has been quiet on the marijuana issue, expressed concern over the feds' bust. A week after the raid, Santa Cruz officials gathered at city hall to supervise public distribution of marijuana to members of the Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana in front of TV crews, a way of giving Washington the finger.

To many Republicans, this looks like bad politics for Bush. "It seems to me about as far from Compassionate Conservatism as you can get," says former Nixon and Reagan aide Lyn Nofziger. "There are an awful lot of people in their 50s and younger who smoked pot when they were younger and don't look on it as something that destroyed their lives. I think there is a lot more open-mindedness toward pot than there used to be."

In Nevada, popular Republican Governor Kenny Guinn refuses to take a stand on Question 9, the pot-legalization amendment to the state constitution, saying he'll go with whatever the people vote for. And he won't really have to worry about it for a while, since the constitutional amendment will go into effect only if Nevadans vote yes on Nov. 5 and again in 2004. So Guinn may be smart to stay out of the debate, because the rhetoric from both sides has gone out of control. The drug czar's latest commercial, which was actually focus-grouped with teens and their parents, shows two teens getting stoned in their father's study, talking apathetically about a bunch of stuff. One pulls out a gun from his dad's drawer, the other asks lazily if it's loaded, and the gun-toting teen shrugs and shoots the other kid. "The suggestion is not to say too many children are being shot in their dens who are marijuana users," Walters said. "It's meant to show that marijuana alters your ability to use judgment." In the other camp, many of the workers lied to voters in the course of gathering signatures to get Question 9 on the ballot, saying it was a medical-marijuana proposition, according to several pro-pot Nevadans. The two camps even fight regularly about how many joints can be made from 3 oz. of pot, the proposed legal maximum. The pro-pot people claim 80, while the anti-pot people carry around bags of 250 joints to illustrate their case. Yes, moms across the state are spending large parts of their nights rolling parsley and oregano.

1 | 2 | 3 | Next >>

Get the Magazine — Try 4 Issues Free!

Waiting to Inhale: The Politics of Medical Marijuana By Alan W. Bock Barnes and Noble: $17.05

	NATION Sniper-Suspect's Military Record John Allen Muhammad was not a standout soldier, but he was a 90 percent marksman TECHNOLOGY Broadband Service Whether you're new to the Web or a wily veteran, we offer some tips on finding the best high-speed access for you  WORLD A Nation in the Dark Shortages of food and electricity leave North Korea desperate for aid and investment  ARTS High Art of Jackass Megastar masochist Johnny Knoxville creates a new kind of comedy, a movie all about hurting himself