He even created a web site called the Mfiles.com using federal "High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area" funds to campaign against the medical marijuana initiative. See links at bottom of page.)

BRAD Owen hates drugs so much that he will do anything, it seems, to stop them: Give speeches to critical teenagers. Create a rock band to sing anti-drug songs. Even step outside the law to push a public vote toward his anti-drug convictions.

The state lieutenant governor’s $7,000 settlement with the state Executive Ethics Board for his fight against Initiative 685 shows the deliberate separation a public official must make between his personal passions and professional responsibilities.

Owen ran for lieutenant governor in 1996 on an anti-drug platform and won, urging prevention, education and enforcement as the keys to safe communities. Then he turned his office into a taxpayer-financed bully pulpit.

The trouble began last year with I-685, which would have legalized the medicinal use of marijuana, heroin and other drugs, and decriminalized most personal drug possession and use.

Owen could have stuck to his First Amendment right of expressing his contempt for the initiative. He could have followed state law by responding to individual inquiries for information. Instead, his office became a mini-campaign headquarters of sorts. The ethics board contends he used public employees, equipment, federal grant money and his own working hours to illegally distribute countless letters, press releases and documents against the initiative.

Owen’s logic is compelling: If he is passionate about his job, and if his job includes anti-drug work, isn’t it a natural extension of his work to fight a pro-drug campaign?

No, for the same reason a school superintendent can’t send a thousand faxes from his office begging people to vote "yes" on a school levy. When the government gets involved, it becomes a government-financed campaign. For a state employee to use public money to kill a state initiative is even worse, undermining the intent of the initiative process.

Initiative 685 failed, thankfully. Its reasonable cousin, the medicinal marijuana Initiative 692, passed this November - no thanks to Owen, who helped lead the "We Said No!" effort against it. State fines and laws can’t keep Owen from shouting hyperbole during his free time, but they can remind him not to do it at the voters’ expense.