Two Out-Of-Staters Fund Medical-Pot Initiative Arizona, Ohio Millionaires Shell Out $262,000 To Change Washington Laws

The campaign to legalize medicinal use of marijuana in Washington is being bankrolled so far not by hirsute exhippies but by two rich and rock-solid citizens from Arizona and Ohio.

John Sperling, a multimillionaire Phoenix businessman and founder of the University of Phoenix, has pumped $212,000 into the campaign for Initiative 685, state records showed Tuesday.

Peter B. Lewis, of Cleveland, chairman of the Progressive Corp. insurance company and a $10 million donor and trustee of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, has contributed $50,000 to the campaign, the Public Disclosure Commission records showed.

Between them, the two men have contributed nearly all of the money raised so far by the campaign. Much of the cash went to pay signature gatherers to get the measure on the Nov. 4 ballot.

Reached by telephone, Sperling, 76, said he considers the nation’s drug policies “nothing short of insane. I can think of no redeeming quality. We’ve been sending $50 billion a year to the drug lords and we think we can stop drugs from coming into this country. It’s a fraud.”

Laws against use of marijuana and other illegal drugs to ease the pain and nausea of cancer patients “are even more insane,” he said.

Lewis, 63, listed by Forbes magazine in 1996 as among the 400 richest Americans, could not be reached.

Rob Killian, a Tacoma physician and the initiative’s main backer, said both men believe “passionately” that current drug law is barbaric.

Both are willing to donate some of their wealth to change drug policy, he said. Indeed, records show Sperling gave $330,000 to a similar measure in Arizona, which passed last year by a 2-1 margin.

“These are two very upstanding people, and I consider both of those guys friends,” Killian said.

Killian said the money gave the campaign the start it needed. “Now, we’re working at the grass roots” to win voter approval, he said.

Initiative 685 would allow regulated medical use of marijuana and other illegal drugs, including LSD and heroin.

The proposal also would deny early prison release to anyone convicted of a violent crime while under the influence of drugs. But it would allow judges to release those serving prison time for nonviolent drug possession crimes and to defer sentences for those convicted after the measure was passed.

It is drawing heavy resistance from anti-drug crusaders, who say it would endorse drug use generally, especially among the young.