Popular ‘Medicine’? Drug Policy Reformers Take the Initiative in the 1990s.

I examine the features, functions, and implications of the ballot initiative as a policymaking institution by investigating the electoral success of the medical marijuana movement of the 1990s. Drawing on case studies of initiative campaigns in California and Maine, interviews with key actors, and document analysis, I explore how medical marijuana advocates successfully negotiated the demands of the initiative process and why opponents' attempts to defeat medical marijuana measures failed. By approaching the institutions of direct democracy from the perspective of ballot petitioners, I demonstrate how the features of the initiative process, including the lack of voter cues typical in candidate campaigns, the public nature of initiative battles, and the absence of compromise and amendability, benefit interests with particular skills and resources. While traditional policymaking institutions emphasize expertise, coalition-building, and deliberation that takes place among an elite audience, initiative policymaking places tremendous importance on organization, fundraising, advertising, and in particular framing and public marketing of a policy idea. In the case of medical marijuana, the initiative process allowed supporters to use their political skills and resources to expand the scope of conflict beyond what they saw as fainthearted legislators and powerful opponent law enforcement organizations in order to harness the public's support for medical marijuana as a policymaking resource. Contrary to the claims of many direct democracy opponents, I argue that money and organization are not responsible for manufacturing support for medical marijuana, but rather amplified the effects of existing grassroots and public support. Finally, the paper shows that the initiative process and the implementation of successful initiatives can allow different, even contradictory policy images and approaches to flourish at the state and federal levels. Venue-shopping on the part of... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]