SAN FRANCISCO — Now that a proposal to legalize pot is on the ballot in California, well-organized groups are lining up on both sides of the debate. And it's not just tie-dyed hippies versus anti-drug crusaders.........But the campaign that unfolds before the November election could yield some unusual allies: free-market libertarians joining police officers frustrated by the drug war to support the measure, and pot growers worried about falling prices pairing with Democratic politicians to oppose it.

A 7-foot tall marijuana plant grew in plain sight on a busy street all summer long until police finally figured it out and destroyed it.

"'I don't know if somebody was watering this thing every day or what was going on, but it was a nice-looking marijuana plant,' [the Orem cop] says.

"He doesn't think it got to be 7 feet tall because people were intentionally turning a blind eye to the pot in their midst."

A group of civilly-disobedient hemp farmers and business leaders were arrested Tuesday morning while digging up the lawn to plant industrial hemp seeds at the headquarters of the Drug Enforcement Administration.