Word: referendums
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Enter on big, rough wheels the state of California, which helped pioneer the tricky practice of democracy through referendum. This year's most controversial example is Proposition 215. It would permit patients with cancer, aids, glaucoma, arthritis and other serious illnesses to grow, possess and use marijuana. It would also allow doctors to "prescribe" pot without fear of prosecution--or merely to recommend it, without committing themselves to a note pad. Though the change would not overrule federal or state laws that criminalize the recreational use of marijuana, Prop 215 would provide voter-approved legal backing for patients or doctors...
They complain that the referendum as written would permit almost anyone to buy marijuana. For one thing it would apply to patients suffering from "any" ailment for which marijuana provides relief, without specifying which complaints that would cover. As a picture of things to come, the opponents point to the Cannabis Buyers' Club in San Francisco, founded in 1991, which at one time claimed 12,000 members. Until Aug. 4, when state narcotics agents raided and closed down the club, it sold pot to anyone who was desperately ill. And maybe to other people. Police say that during...
...which slaughtered card-holding members of four other political parties following Portugal's withdrawal from its former colony. Indonesia's invasion the following month sent most Fretilin leaders into exile. Ramos-Horta advocates Fretilin's peace plan: a two-year pullback of Indonesian troops and an eventual U.N.-sponsored referendum on self-rule. "We, the East Timorese, are offering an olive branch to Indonesia," Ramos-Horta told TIME last week, describing the process as a way for Indonesia to save face and regain respect. He says his share of the $1.1 million award should have gone to Xanana Gusmao...
Belo received the news of the prize as he was saying Mass in East Timor, which is more than 90% Catholic and where the church is just about the only intermediary between the government and the cowed populace. In 1989 he fearlessly asked the U.N. to support a referendum in East Timor, and he has criticized Indonesia's policy of importing non-Timorese migrants to the island. After the massacre of some 200 protesters in 1991, Belo loudly called for a commission of inquiry. He has said the Indonesian military had planned, but failed, to assassinate him twice...
Belo believes Fretilin's savagery is neither forgotten nor forgiven. While he still advocates a referendum, the bishop is not as confident as Ramos-Horta seems to be about its outcome. Many East Timorese, he says, may even choose union with Indonesia. He offers an alternative to a potentially violent referendum: East Timor as an Indonesian province with special autonomy...