Saginaw attorney Greg Schmid in many ways epitomizes the fresh scent of independence blowing over the political landscape of Michigan in these early days of the New Millennium.

A self-described conservative Republican specializing in criminal & real estate law, Schmid is sponsoring the Personal Responsibility Amendment 2000, a grass-roots petition drive that would end marijuana prohibition and earmark drug forfeiture money towards education & substance abuse programs in Michigan, without running into federal roadblocks that similar initiatives have encountered previously in other states.

Specifically, the amendment would allow adults to grow three marijuana plants or possess up to three ounces of cannabis for their own personal use, provided the plants are within the privacy of one’s home and not accessible or visible to children.

But most important, Schmid hopes to re-inject the notion of ‘privacy’ and ‘responsibility’ back into our culture - two axiomatic cornerstones of Democracy that he feels have been hijacked by the demagoguery and fear fueling the ‘War on Drugs’.

"People confuse the issue by asserting that this is a ‘pro-pot’ piece of legislation," explains Schmid. "I personally feel that all drugs are handicaps to be avoided, only drug laws are no way to treat a nation of free individuals. Each person ultimately has to find his or her own way in life, but a $50 billion a year drug law habit of incarceration and misinformation is counterproductive."

"What this amendment does is send a clear message to change these laws," he continues. "You don’t arrest 700,000 people a year because they choose to smoke pot and then let other people readily consume alcohol & tobacco. In fact, you can’t compare marijuana with alcohol & tobacco because 450,000 people each year die from alcohol & tobacco related conditions. 80% of all heart conditions are caused by alcohol & tobacco, but no one has ever died from marijuana."

"Ironically, President Nixon’s Shafer Commission in 1972 was of the unanimous opinion that marijuana use should not be subject to criminal prosecution," notes Schmid. "Between 1969 and 1977, government appointed commissions in Canada, England, Australia, and the Netherlands issued reports that agreed with the Shafer Commission conclusions. All found that marijuana’s dangers had been greatly exaggerated."

"Essentially, the War on Drugs is a $50 billion a year failure which accounts for the fact that over 29% of the persons employed by the State of Michigan work for the Department of Corrections. Society should regulate marijuana, tax it, and educate against abuse. Laws that don’t respect people breed people who don’t respect laws, and I think our drug enforcement policies are coming to resemble the Nazi race codes of Hitler’s Germany, where freedom & justice were incidental to government fiat."

At the age of 39, Greg Schmid is a ‘seasoned professional’ when it comes to drafting ballot initiatives.

"My first experience was as a teenager in high school when I helped my father, Alan Schmid, collect signatures for the Headlee Amendment, which helped bring tax reform to Michigan. My father was one of the co-drafters, and then in 1980 my father started drafting ‘Sunset Laws’ for legislators when nobody knew what it was."

"In 1986, when I graduated from Cooley Law School, I worked on the Part Time Legislator drive before people knew what term limits were, and later drafted the ‘Limited Legislator’ initiative, which was a combination of term limits & part time legislator, only took the punitive aspects away from the original drafts that cut politician’s pensions."

"A lot of people don’t like term limits, but I view them as the ultimate campaign finance reform," comments Schmid at the notion that Term Limits have fallen out of favor with voters.

"A legislator like State Representative Mike Hanley , for instance, has developed clout right away, so the limits assure he’s not there so long he doesn’t forget what he went for in the first place. Plus, it makes sure officials can’t get stuck into that churning of donations. By taking the opportunity to be re-elected out of the process, we somehow take the pressure to be re-elected out of it, which I think makes for a better legislator."

A turning point in terms of Schmid’s PRA 2000 Amendment was back in 1985, when Oregon pressed for a similar initiative.

"We had this jurisdictional problem because the Federal government regulates marijuana," explains Schmid. "No state can ‘legitimize’ that pre-empted field. Oregon had a buying permit process where if you had it taped up in front of 2 plants you were good to go, only it never went anywhere."

"I waited for the right time to come and spent many years making myself invulnerable to attacks, and because I don’t smoke pot, I don’t have that baggage to contend with, which enables me to focus on the real issues."

"But I watched with great care the 1998 election results and was shocked to see Jesse Ventura become governor out of nowhere," exclaims Schmid. "And here comes four ballot initiatives at the same time, one of them in Washington D.C. with 69% exit polls. It was a huge election, only Congress passed a law saying no agency of the federal government or D.C. could spend any money on initiatives having to do with pot, meaning they could set up the polls and ballots and computers so people could exercise their rights, but when the print-outs were made they literally took white out over the votes to comply with the law."

"Ten months and a lawsuit later, they were forced to count the vote. But then another law passed which cancelled it by part of the D.C. budget bill, which Clinton vetoed partly because the new bill interceded with the rights of the people of Washington, D.C. At that point it was negotiated out of the bill and then they re-submitted it with cancellation of the election and Clinton signed it."

"From that moment when that particular vote was not counted, I had to get involved," asserts Schmid. "Now it’s not about pot anymore. Not it’s about the fact that if you’re in American and have elections, you have them."

"Not many people have the experience I do to conduct this initiative campaign," admits Schmid, "and I don’t care if it passes or not. I’ll take a no vote. I just want to see if it’s the people or politicians who want marijuana to be illegal, because I’m sick of seeing people’s driver’s licenses being taken and their property seized. It’s not funny for people who lose their jobs because of drug testing, or worse yet, this chilling effect that causes people to think they can’t advance in life because they’re going to be drug tested just because they smoke pot or drink alcohol. You know there was a time in England when whiskey was legal and gin wasn’t, so go figure. I’m not saying it’s good or bad, but I’m not going to pretend for the government’s sake that it’s bad."

Since the PRA 2000 kick-off on January 15^th at the State Theatre in Kalamazoo, Schmid says he has over 1,600 people circulating petitions that are committed to gleaning over 100 signatures. "If they all get 200 signatures, then we’re on the ballot. "

"We need 300,000 signatures and have 25,000 so far only 24 days into the petition drive," notes Schmid. "I am shooting for one million signatures and have sent petitions to 2,500 people. In many cities throughout the state, we have 400 petitions circulating. "

"Additionally, people can contact me on my cellphone at 239-9000, which is easy to remember and gets directly to me. Since I’m asking people to spend lots of time and money collecting signatures for this initiative, without complaint, I’ll answer the phone. If a cop is hassling a circulator and they don’t know how to handle it, they can phone me and we’ll talk it through."

Indeed, following the Michigan Primary, which had an unprecedented number of independents and new voter turnout, Schmid was ecstatic. "Did you see the exit polls?", he asked. "28% were new voters. PRA has registered many thousands of people to vote and all of our volunteers are told to call the state to get mail-in forms, so whether it was just appearance or reality, it appears that we have had some coincidental influence already."

In order to avoid the pitfalls of federal pre-emption that marred the medical marijuana initiatives in California & Oregon, Schmid decided the only solution was to draft his amendment to get it out of federal jurisdiction.

"They can challenge it in court, but I don’t think they’ll be successful if it passes in Michigan," explains Schmid.

"Medical marijuana is not a ruse and if anything those efforts in California & Oregon showed America that pot is fundamentally different from other drugs. Now you can reason with people and it’s a different thing."

"But the problem with those other initiatives is that with medical marijuana you are dealing with a prescription, which is inherently a commercial distribution. There is no other way to describe it and the federal government under interstate commerce has the right to regulate it."

"What we’ve done is only legalized the limited use and possession of homegrown marijuana in the privacy of one’s home and away from children in a non-public manner. In Article C, we have a list of exceptions involving autos, probation, parole, or any commercial activity."

"In reading the Lopez case, which is the latest & greatest case law on interstate commerce, some judges say it’s plenary and they can define the activity and the states cannot, but the majority of cases say no, that isn’t true - there has to be some economic component to it."

" We use the term ‘except any commercial activity’ so the federal Court can say, all analysis aside, that Michigan law doesn’t pertain to any commercial activity, therefore it’s out of court. At that point it’s a matter of home use with limited commercial activity, no more commercial agriculture than having a basil plant grown in your backyard for your soup."

" The only federal law we’re affecting is possession, not pricing, so there is no government interest in it. It would be different if you had 12 wheat farmers individually growing for their own use, because in aggregate, that would affect the price. But here the government isn’t interested in the price of pot. That’s a police type of law and the feds don’t have that police power over state jurisdiction."

"And the same is true with our forfeiture provisions," continues Schmid. "We don’t eliminate them with this legislation, but we do remove the appearance of impropriety associated with the drug forfeiture process. Right now that money is not accountable, nor is it used in policy directed ways."

"One reporter told me a sheriff used his forfeiture money to throw a big party every year, so by taking away that incentive and saying forfeit all you want, but any drug, gambling, or alcohol related forfeiture money can never be used by any state or local law enforcement agency, and only for educational & treatment programs, we’ll make sure no one forfeits assets for the wrong reasons."

"Even our State Drug Czar Darnell Jackson from Saginaw feels that way. We have to maintain our credibility. You can’t tell people pot will kill you the moment you touch it, because they realize you’re lying. You have to tell them the truth that it’s best not to do drugs, but don’t lie to them to get your point across."

Will Politicians Come Out of the Closet?

Since the launch of the PRA 2000 initiative, has Schmid received any endorsements or backing from politicians also dismayed at the horrible waste of resource and money engendered by the Drug War? Indeed, back in his days as a State Senator in 1982 Governor John Engler also sponsored a joint resolution to legalize marijuana, based on a similar conservative belief in the rights of individuals.

"Engler has not said a word," answers Schmid. "He’s a smart politician and always ends up on top. And none have come out publicly, only demagogues like assistant attorney general Mitch Woods, who as a career prosecutor has made a living off enforcing prohibition laws, which serve primarily to put government into unwitting partnership with organized crime by keeping prices high, competition low, and by forcing ordinary working people into the hands of drug dealers."

"After the Carter Administration you saw a lot of politicians come out for decriminalization, and also witnessed a huge backlash," notes Schmid. "One problem with politicians is they get scared to stand up when they think they’re going to get cut down for doing so. They don’t want to defeat their more basic policies by getting themselves elected out of office and becoming totally ineffectual."

"Unfortunately, they end up co-opting themselves. You can’t blame them for not standing up for the issue, but if they don’t and they continue to dance around the edges, the question becomes do we have a 4^th Amendment anymore?

"Also, politicians sell soap and like what sells. Like the silent majority of the old days, they don’t hear the echoes of the people that used to smoke and think it’s okay, because they don’t have a vested interest. People between 18 and 30 don’t vote and don’t register, which is why we’re trying to turn it around with our voter registration push. This segment needs to realize they’ve disenfranchised themselves from the system and made themselves politically irrelevant. Commercially people will market to them, but politicians don’t in a realistic sense because they don’t vote. It’s like showing your pockets open with no money."

"The state depends upon the participation and intelligence of its citizens, and we have about 400 voter registration forms out there. If the number of forms are any indication, we’ll get 150,000 new voters in this election."

"It comes down to answering the question of what sort of society do we want to live in. Look at our history for the real solution. Franklin Roosevelt did not fight to end alcohol prohibition because he thought alcohol abuse is good for people. Likewise, the Personal Responsibility Amendment does not seek to encourage the abuse of marijuana or any drug. Prohibition is the single most corrupting influence in our society today.

"One of the reasons I’m doing this is because I don’t smoke pot," concludes Schmid. "These drug laws are insane, and that is the issue. As pot laws get thrown on the ash heap of history, they will be known as the McCarthyism of our era. All the same attributes are there."

People interested in circulating Personal Responsibility Amendment 2000

petitions are encouraged to obtain their own petition online at