As a sign that the national mood has begun to shift away from the zero tolerance, "just say No" mantra that first took root in the late '70s, voters in three states and Washington D.C. (too late for a former mayor) vote today on measures that will decriminalize drugs or change the penalties for same:

Purported grass-roots campaigns in Nevada, Ohio, Arizona and the District of Columbia are being run by political advocacy firms in New York and Washington, D.C., with money from financier George Soros and University of Phoenix founder John Sperling, billionaires both, and multimillionaire Peter Lewis, retired CEO of Progressive Insurance.

Opponents say their posse of soccer moms, anti-drug groups and police officials cannot raise the money to counter the proponents' professional media campaign.

''It could be Nevada today and Anytown, USA, tomorrow,'' says Sandy Heverly, director of STOP DUI, the main opposition group in Nevada. ''Their ultimate goal is to legalize drugs everywhere.''

Recent polls indicate the ballot measures, to be decided today, are a tossup in Arizona, Ohio and Nevada. In Washington, polls show voters favor the measure.

* Arizona's ballot measure asks whether to require state police to distribute up to 2 ounces of marijuana per month to people with a registration card for medical marijuana and whether to remove criminal penalties for possession of up to 2 ounces.

* Nevada's measure asks whether to make it legal for adults to possess as much as 3 ounces of marijuana and require a legally regulated marijuana market.

* Ohio and Washington ballot measures call for treatment instead of jail for people arrested for marijuana possession.

The ballot initiatives are part of a nationwide strategy essentially run by two groups, the Drug Policy Alliance in New York and the Marijuana Policy Project in Washington, and funded by the three men. Although they have chosen local battlegrounds, the larger enemy is the federal ''war on drugs.''

''We're trying to do this on a state level to put pressure on Congress to do something,'' says Bill Zimmerman, executive director for the Campaign for New Drug Policies, which funds and advises the Ohio and Washington initiatives. ''Drug policy is not a local issue. It's a national issue.''

I couldn't agree more: the War on Drugs has been a failure on every level. It's been a politically expedient issue for over 20 years now and the time has come to roll the tide back the other way with treament for addicts and greatly reduced penalties for simple possession of every kind of illegal drug. And I say balls to the wall to Nevada for the effort to decriminalize marijuana and create a state-regulated market, as they have done for prostitution and gambling.

Our initiative here in Ohio to require treatment rather than jail is a huge step in the right direction: if you really want to get people off drugs, jail sure as hell is not the place to send them.