ACROSS THE POND, the drug-law-reform movement is currently riding a high of sorts. Drug-law reformers in Great Britain have made inroads in public-health policy that exist only in the dreams of their US counterparts.

European public attitudes toward drugs — particularly marijuana — are partly responsible for this.

This divergence in attitude might best be illustrated by an idea floated seriously last January concerning the Scottish capital of Edinburgh — a generally dour and straitlaced metropolis that lets its hair down only twice a year, for its fabled "Fringe" arts festival and its annual "Hogmanay" New Year’s festivities.

Hogmanay has now become Europe’s largest street party, and its organizer, Pete Irvine, penned an op-ed for the United Kingdom’s Sunday Times last January in which he called for a liberalization of marijuana laws in Scotland. Such a move, he argued, could make Edinburgh into a "new" Amsterdam. "It may be seedy," Irvine wrote, "but that city’s tourism is booming and much of the year it’s colder and wetter than it is here. Most people who visit Amsterdam don’t necessarily visit cannabis cafés, but they love the flavour of that freedom."

It’s impossible to conceive of the tourism board of Boston or Seattle making a similar pitch. In Britain, however, Irvine’s proposal is playing out against a fast-changing policy on marijuana embraced by Prime Minister Tony Blair and his government. Last week, for instance, British home secretary David Blunkett scaled down targets set in 1998 for reductions in the use of drugs such as crack and heroin (labeled "Class A" drugs in the UK). A 50 percent reduction in the use of such drugs, Blunkett said, was not "a credible target." He added that "no one else thinks it’s a credible target."

This comes on the heels of Great Britain’s planned downgrading of marijuana from a "Class B" drug to a "Class C" drug. It’s a change that will prevent the arrest of those caught merely using pot, though its sale will remain punishable by arrest and imprisonment. It also opens up the potential for the "pot tourism" proposed by Irvine for Edinburgh.

These changes in British policy and law owe much to the tactics of UK reformers. Just how have they done it? Alun Buffry is the national coordinator for Britain’s Legalize Cannabis Alliance (LCA), a political party devoted to gaining a larger profile for drug reform in Britain. He says that the emergence of his party has "allowed us to enter the [political] arena and not simply put our points across [in the media]." The party ran 13 candidates in Britain’s last general election — and it plans to run 120 in the next election, which must be called by 2005.

The registration of LCA as a legitimate political party hasn’t had an earthshaking effect on Britain’s rigid parliamentary system just yet. But Buffry argues that the move has allowed the drug-law-reform movement to "gain extra respect from other politicians and the media, show that we are not just a ‘bunch of stoned hippies,’ and, perhaps more important, get the votes that the other political parties want."

Buffry also points to Britain’s drug-law reformers’ efforts to adopt a single, clear message for their campaign as another factor. The "Angel Declaration" (which has been signed by members of the British Parliament and a wide swath of the UK’s drug-law-reform community) offers what Buffry says is "a general outline of principles with a general set of proposals" — including scrapping the UK’s 1971 drug laws and creating a new "National Drugs Agency" to supply use and health guidelines and regulate supply and sales.

Though Buffry argues that the Blair government’s drug-law reform amounts to "little change" (particularly in its shuffling of drug penalties and arrest powers), it is clear that Britain is undergoing a massive reorganization of its drug policy — in part as a result of the efforts of reformers.

Asked if he had a critique of US reform efforts in light of the changes in Britain, Buffry’s answer amounts to what might seem to be counter-intuitive advice in an increasingly conservative US political scene. "US groups focus far too heavily on a limited number of ‘medical’ uses [for marijuana], albeit the most serious illnesses," he says. "They campaign for the right of the sick whilst ignoring the rights of the hale. The biggest cause of premature death, illness, absenteeism, and maybe even violence is stress. Marijuana is very helpful for many people in relieving that stress. We feel that cannabis would be useful to a great percentage of the population for that reason. In the US, they tend to ignore that."

IF THE ADVICE of Britain’s drug-law reformers is to "lighten up," they operate in a political atmosphere completely different from their US counterparts. Despite the Blair government’s alliance with the Bush administration on many issues, Blair’s Labour Party occupies the political center in Britain, with vestigial ties to the political left.

US drug-law reformers face an entirely different — and far more conservative — landscape. It’s a landscape in which the Bush administration can plan to appoint Dr. W. David Hager — author of As Jesus Cared for Women: Restoring Women Then and Now (Fleming H. Revell, 1998), who won’t prescribe birth control to unmarried patients and offers Bible reading and prayer as ways of coping with premenstrual syndrome — as the head of the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory Committee. Meanwhile, the most recent elections have given Republicans control of the US Congress. Conservatives there have already put the kibosh on the District of Columbia’s medical-marijuana initiatives (approved overwhelmingly), and they figure to extend their opposition to other publicly supported initiatives. The feds have also gone after medical marijuana in states such as California, which have approved measures allowing its use.

In light of the general national political picture, it’s hard not to notice that all the states where drug-law-reform initiatives failed were "red" states that cast their electoral votes for George W. Bush. But drug-law-reform advocates dub this a "red herring" of sorts. "It’s true that states in the West that were ‘red’ states rejected these measures," says NORML’s St. Pierre. "But it has been these same states in the West [such as Alaska] that have previously led the way" in passing ballot initiatives to reform drug laws. The legal delays that forced reformers off the ballot in states such as Michigan and Florida didn’t help reform’s record in the West, either.

Merkin also points out that despite the gloomy prospects that a GOP-controlled federal government presents to drug-law reform, Democrats have not exactly pushed the reform issue forward. The Clinton administration reinforced the "drug czar" position, and the Democrats did little to liberalize drug laws over the past decade when they had control of one or both houses of the US Congress.

"The Democrats have been profiles in cowardice on this issue," says Merkin.

But part of the electoral-postmortem critique inevitably settles on the reformers themselves. After all, St. Pierre notes, the drug-law-reform movement did take some risks. It lost its gamble to force the issue in states such as Nevada, for example, where polling support before the initiative’s introduction was softer than the 60 percent or so preferred by reformers. "There’s a point," says St. Pierre, "where we have to balance political goals with the idealism that we all still possess."

Another possible factor in the 2002 defeats was that the ballot initiatives were drawn too broadly. Many of the initiatives called for state roles in distributing or sanctioning marijuana, or combined decriminalization measures with reductions in penalties. Merkin points to Arizona’s initiative, which mixed decriminalization measures with state distribution channels and reforms of asset forfeiture, as an example of a case where people "might have been pulled in too many directions."

Such weaknesses left drug-law reform vulnerable in 2002. The Arizona defeat, for instance, proved that the tactic of pulling voters "in too many directions" was not the doing solely of reformers. On the ballot alongside the drug-law reformers’ Proposition 203 was another initiative floated by that state’s drug-war advocates — Proposition 302. This drug-war "countermeasure" — spearheaded by Maricopa County district attorney Rick Romley — actually reinstated probation and incarceration for nonviolent drug offenders, and it passed with 69 percent of the vote.

The battle in Ohio, moreover, illustrates yet another new obstacle faced by drug-law-reform proponents. In that election, opponents of the reform proposition — including Governor Robert Taft — managed to insert into the measure a preamble that outlined the costs of the proposed switch from jail time to treatment ($247 million) with no mention of its potential savings. This move alone put a serious dent in public support for the proposition and ultimately helped defeat it.

Drug-law reformers point to the involvement of government officials such as Walters, Romley, and Taft as a signal of elected officials’ new willingness to push back hard — and openly — against their efforts. "We’re facing a well-financed, cleverly constructed, and taxpayer-financed opposition for the first time," says Merkin. "It’s essentially a taxpayer-funded PAC."

Merkin adds that his group is reassessing its efforts. In addition to publicly challenging Walters over his role in the Nevada ballot, that rethinking extends to what they will do in 2004. "We’re all going to be trying to sort through things," he says, "and figure out what worked and what didn’t."

St. Pierre argues that to combat a drug war that’s piggybacking on the war on terror in an increasingly conservative environment, the drug-law-reform movement has to get smarter — and get back to basics. "We’d be foolhardy not to learn from these things," he says. "We need better legal counsel and clearly worded initiatives in states that are picked carefully. We need to focus on who and when we’re asking for these measures.

"We have the muscles for a sprint," concludes St. Pierre. "But we need the endurance to get through the marathon."

The problem for the drug-law reformers is that the war on terror — and the collateral damage to their movement it causes — has pushed the finish line of that marathon farther down the road, just as they thought they had glimpsed it. It will take stronger muscles — and equal measures of brains and determination — to finish the race now.

Richard Byrne is a freelance journalist based in Washington, DC. He can be reached at richardbyrne1@earthlink.net