From: tuco@frontiernet.net   
      
   Most Western States Now Have Medical Marijuana Laws   
   11/10/2004   
      
   Following this month's election, nearly 75 percent of Western states have   
   medical-marijuana laws, with Montana the most recent state to be added, the   
   Associated Press reported Nov. 5.   
      
   Activists and political scientists say it's easier to get medical-marijuana   
   initiatives approved in Western states because they generally are in the   
   forefront of social trends. Furthermore, people who live in the West tend to   
   frown on dictating to others what they can and can't do.   
      
   "Westerners have a stronger belief in kind of individualism in the   
   old-fashioned frontier sense," said Sven Steinmo, a University of Colorado   
   political scientist and board member for the Center of the American West.   
      
   It's also easier to get medical-marijuana initiatives on the ballot in   
   Western states; 11 of the 24 states that allow issues to be placed on the   
   ballot by petition, thus bypassing the legislature, are in the West.   
      
   "Our politics in the West are much less constrained and it gives   
   opportunities for initiatives like the death-with-dignity issue in Oregon or   
   medicinal marijuana. You name it," said David Olson, a political scientist   
   at the University of Washington.   
      
   This November, residents in Montana approved a medical-marijuana initiative,   
   making it the 11th state in the country and the ninth Western state to   
   permit marijuana use for medical purposes. In comparison, only two of the 37   
   states in other regions of the country have adopted such laws. They are   
   Maine and Vermont.   
      
   _______________   
      
   http://www.jointogether.org/sa/news/summaries/reader/0,1854,575136,00.html   
      
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