Last week, we highlighted a Virginia group's effort to use open record statutes to find out whether bureaucrats in half a dozen states -- including Nevada -- had used public resources to agitate against ballot initiatives that would limit the scope of government.

We await the results of that endeavor. In the meantime, Nevadans on Thursday were subjected to precisely such an abuse of taxpayer funds.

That occurred when "Drug Czar" John Walters jetted into town and held a news conference to denounce Question 7, an initiative on the November ballot that would legalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana for adults.

Keep in mind that Mr. Walters wasn't in Nevada for some unrelated event and simply chose to express his opinion on a pending matter of local importance. No, he came here -- courtesy of the American public -- specifically to influence the outcome of a Nevada ballot initiative.

This isn't the first time this has happened. Both the Bush and Clinton administrations opposed efforts by Nevadans -- and the residents of a dozen other states -- to legalize marijuana for medicinal purposes.

Mr. Walters also appeared in the Silver State in 2002 and 2004 to campaign against marijuana-related measures. A 2002 proposal to permit possession of up to 3 ounces of pot failed miserably, 61 percent to 39 percent. Two years later, a more restrictive decriminalization effort failed to gather enough signatures to make the ballot.

"I'm confident that once people are reminded of the importance here," he said, "they'll go to the polls and say no again."

Perhaps. But whatever happened to a GOP administration's commitment to states' rights?

Electioneering on the taxpayer dime is illegal in most states -- and should be for federal officials, too. Nevadans are perfectly capable of weighing the issues surrounding Question 7 and rendering judgment on their own without being browbeaten by the standard-bearer for decades of failed federal drug policy.

Mr. Walters should have stayed home.