Reefer Madness

Representative Ron Paul's office in Clute looks quite different from Dean Becker's. Propped up against one wall -- underneath a bumper sticker ("Guns Save Lives") and a certificate of appreciation from the NRA -- Paul has a stack of signs that read, "The taxpayer's best friend." The Republican's nickname in Congress is Dr. No, and in the past session alone, he's demurred on bills for child nutrition, increased FCC fines, federal highways, obesity lawsuits and regulations for future space tourism.

This year, Paul got a free pass from Democrats; he has no opponent come November. His philosophical matrix dictates his position on medical marijuana. In truth, he's a Libertarian in GOP pajamas; he even ran for president in 1988 as that party's candidate.

"The issue of freedom of choice is more important to me than marijuana as medicine," says the OB-GYN doctor. "As a physician, I know the frustrations that patients and doctors have in really treating some of the problems of nausea with cancer and other problems. And there's some pretty good evidence that marijuana helps."

A tall, thin fellow who just passed his 69th birthday, Paul looks very much the elderly country doctor, swiveling in his office chair with Velcro-strap sneakers and dark socks hiked halfway up his shins. It's a cultivated, if not calculated, political impression -- and one that may have saved his ass on the drug issue. Paul was a congressman in the late '70s and early '80s and in 1996 ran again for a seat in the 14th District, a mostly rural stretch south of Austin and southwest of Houston. In the time in between, he'd called for the repeal of antidrug laws. To no one's surprise, his opponents targeted the issue, believing it was his political Achilles heel.

"To tell you the truth, this was one of the reasons I was sort of challenged to run again," he says. "The very first question was 'Are you for legalization of drugs?' I mean, that was the very first question, so I knew and then it went on and on."

Dr. Ken Bryan served as a political consultant in the primary campaign against Paul and in a general campaign against him a few years later. He says the drug stuff "never stuck."

"Part of the deal was that people thought the charges were so outrageous that they wouldn't believe it," says Bryan. "Most people saw him as the old-time doctor. He delivered lots of people's babies."

To parry his opponents' thrusts, and to burnish that image, Paul countered with ads that showed him in his doctor's office with the white coat, delivering babies and such.

The strategy worked again and again. As Paul himself points out, "I'm in a conservative Bible Belt district, who I'm sure aren't very happy with drugs. It's not like San Francisco or something." Yet the parable of Ron Paul bears enormous significance for the issue of medical marijuana as a whole, particularly if supporters hope to break the political gridlock that has formed.

"We're kind of in an interesting phase on this issue," says NORML's Stroup. "We have won the hearts and minds of a large majority of the American public."

Several polls validate this contention. A 2001 Pew Research Center study found the public supports prescription marijuana by a more than three-to-one ratio, and a Time/CNN survey one year later had it at 80 percent. But despite the fact that marijuana's medical use enjoys widespread and consistent public support, it's a source of a paralysis on the part of elected officials -- perhaps the strangest paradox in politics. Both conservative columnist William F. Buckley Jr.'s writings and the NORML Web site, odd bedfellows in the fight to legalize, lament this pervasive fear of looking "soft on drugs."

"You know why it's not legal," says Paul. "It's because people are afraid to vote that way. You know, people get hysterical" -- he fakes a shrieky voice -- "Oh, I can't do that. I agree with you, but the people'll think I'm pro-drugs…The whole thing is just carried away. So Congress is way behind what the people are thinking. If this were a really, really bad position, I couldn't be in office, because it's been used against me continuously." The point is salient not only to Paul, but it speaks to a second, perhaps stranger paradox: Despite the issue's volatility, no one can think of a single case of someone significant losing their seat because of a stance on medical marijuana.

"Ron Paul should've been gone 20 years ago if that were the case," says Alan Bock, author of Waiting to Inhale: The Politics of Medical Marijuana. "I think partly what this is, most people, early in their political careers, some consultant told them: 'Don't touch that. Your career's over.' And they've never rethought it. Even if they've had fairly serious questions about it."