"People thought it was inevitable here two years ago," said Walters in reference to the marijuana-legalization ballot initiative Nevada voters rejected in 2002. "If we don't stop them, everything else is undermined."

In 2002, Walters flooded Nevada's airwaves with government-financed anti-marijuana ads to encourage the measure's defeat. The initiative failed, with 61 percent of voters rejecting it.

"A lot of money has been spent in this state to make the drug problem worse," said Walters.

This election year, the Committee to Regulate and Control Marijuana, a group funded by the Marijuana Policy Project, is hoping to collect enough signatures for a new petition to legalize marijuana. If 51,337 valid signatures are collected by Nov. 9, the 2005 state legislature is required to consider it. The measure would then go before voters in the 2006 election.

Walters argued that local measures to legalize marijuana undermine the efforts of the ONDCP to curb teenage drug use.

Larry Sandell, campaign manager for the Committee to Regulate and Control Marijuana, countered that the group is not presenting a pro-drug message to teens.

"We aren't pro-pot," he said. "But we are saying this drug is part of our society. Anyone who wants marijuana can get it. We need to control it and keep it out of the hands of kids. Drug dealers don't card."

An initiative to legalize marijuana will appear on the Nov. 2 ballot in Alaska; medical-marijuana items are on the ballot in Montana and Oregon.

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