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InvisibleveggieM

Registered: 07/25/04
Posts: 17,538
Dedicated Pot Crusaders Already Licking Their Chops for the Next Opportunity to Legalize
    #13429314 - 11/03/10 02:46 PM (13 years, 6 months ago)

Dedicated Pot Crusaders Already Licking Their Chops for the Next Opportunity to Legalize
November 3, 2010 - AlterNet

California's pot-legalization initiative went down to defeat last night, but 46 percent of the vote tells advocates like Richard Lee that the future is bright.

OAKLAND—California’s pot-legalization initiative went down to defeat last night, but supporters say it came close enough to try again.

The Proposition 19 ballot initiative won 46 percent of the vote. It would have regulated and taxed marijuana under rules similar to those for alcohol, albeit with a lot more dry counties and odd blue laws.

Ironically, the proposal failed to carry the “Emerald Triangle” of Humboldt and Mendocino counties, the state’s most fabled ganja-growing region. Prop 19 got only 47 percent there, according to “semi-official” returns posted on-line by California’s Secretary of State.

Supporters claimed a moral victory and a tactical advance. The vote, they said, was close enough to put marijuana legalization on the national map as an issue to be taken seriously.

“It’s not a debate about if or when. It’s a debate about how,” said Prop 19 “coproponent” Jeff Jones, a longtime medical-marijuana activist. Jones’ Oakland cannabis dispensary was the plaintiff in the Supreme Court’s first medical-marijuana case.

“It hurts, but no matter what, it’s a victory,” said Danielle Schumacher, 28, a volunteer from Berkeley. “”We got a big percentage of the vote, and that’s something to build on.”

“The more we talk about it, we win,” said Aaron Houston of Students for a Sensible Drug Policy, which organized scores of volunteers for the initiative. “We’ve had 40 years of Reefer Madness propaganda that’s said it’s not OK to talk about it. That’s what changed this fall.”

The proposal won almost two-thirds of the vote in San Francisco, and also carried Oakland and most of the Bay Area. It lost badly in the Central Valley, getting only 37 percent in Fresno, and it did only a few points better in the “Inland Empire” east of Los Angeles.

“It was an uphill battle in an off-year election; with an older, smaller, and more conservative electorate, it’s a hostile environment for marijuana-law reform,” said Stephen Gutwillig of the Drug Policy Alliance’s Los Angeles office.

If the initiative had passed, cannabis users, growers, and dealers would still have been vulnerable under federal law. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced in late October that the federal government would continue to enforce laws against sale, cultivation, and possession. The measure began to slip in the polls after that, and some activists call Holder’s announcement a turning point.

The Leaders

Seeded by a $1.4 million contribution from Oakland medical-marijuana magnate Richard Lee, the initiative was opposed by most of the state’s political establishment, but it drew a dedicated volunteer force and a coalition that activists called “unprecedented.” On Election Day, volunteers at Yes on 19’s Oakland office made more than 50,000 get-out-the-vote calls.

Prohibition endorsers included governor-elect Jerry Brown and his Republican opponent, Meg Whitman; the state Chamber of Commerce; the state associations of prosecutors, police chiefs, sheriffs, and narcotics officers; and both candidates for California attorney general.

People in the cannabis world say a victory for the Republican attorney-general candidate, Los Angeles prosecutor Steve Cooley, would do more damage than Prop 19’s loss. Cooley has argued that the state’s medical-marijuana law does not permit sale, and threatened to close every medical-pot dispensary in the state. He narrowly trailed Democrat Kamala Harris as of noon Wednesday.

Prop 19 also “forged an unprecedented coalition for marijuana-law reform,” says Stephen Gutwilliger. It won endorsements from groups outside the cannabis-culture and drug-policy worlds. It was backed by the state branches of the NAACP, the Latino Voters League, the Service Employees International Union, the Northern California district of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, and the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 5.

“We’ve never been in rooms with union leaders, with minorities, with Democrats,” said Allen St. Pierre of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. “In 1996, we were trying to convince the country that medical marijuana wasn’t a farce.”

The UFCW began backing the initiative in earnest after workers at Oakland’s medical-marijuana dispensaries joined the union earlier this year. Legal marijuana might bring “60,000, 70,000, 80,000 sustainable, single-earner jobs to California,” says Dan Rush, Local 5’s special-operations director. “It’s a growth industry for my union for the next ten years.”

The jobs pay well, he says—up to $35 an hour with benefits—-so legalization is also about “bringing dignity to the industry,” he adds, treating cannabis retail or agricultural workers like they’re meatcutters or grocery-store workers instead of like drug dealers.

Opposition Within the Ranks

A surprising amount of opposition came from pot-smokers themselves—-its significance conceivably shown by the results in Humboldt and Mendocino counties, where cannabis farming is a mainstay of the economy. Many growers fear that legalization would make prices drop so low that it would slash their income, or that big corporations would squeeze them out.

“It’ll exclude us little guys,” said an East Bay grower. He said the semi-legal status of medical marijuana has stabilized the market, and he doesn’t want to mess things up.

“There are mixed feelings within the industry,” said one of his companions, another grower. Indoor growers might be able to find a market for high-quality herb similar to that for microbrewery beer, but he also feared a “green rush” of new growers who would flood the market with mediocre herb and bring prices down too low for farmers to make a living.

Other stoner opponents said that anyone who really needs cannabis can get a medical-use certificate.

Still, voting against legalizing marijuana because you yourself are relatively safe might seem to be an extraordinarily hypocritical act for a pot-smoker—-or conceivably racist, as recently released studies by the Drug Policy Alliance have found dramatically higher arrest rates for pot possession among black and Latino people in California, especially young men.

“The growers (mostly all white) never talk about the War on Drugs and all the youth of color rotting behind bars in California and everywhere for small amounts of marijuana!” said a disgruntled hippie-era Mendocino County grower before the election.

Others objected to the age restrictions in the proposal. It would have set a smoking age of 21, and increased penalties for a person over 21 providing non-medical pot to someone under 18.

There were also plenty of conspiracy theories floating around California’s cannabis world. Philip Morris and/or R.J. Reynolds had bought 200,000 acres of foreclosed property up north, waiting for the day they could bulldoze into the marijuana market. Monsanto was waiting in the wings with ganja genetically engineered to be ultra-potent. Billionaire George Soros, who contributed $1 million to the initiative, was using Richard Lee to corner the market.

“If you can have it, why are you fighting so hard for other people to have it?” shouted Bill Benjamin, 28, of Oakland, one of a knot of men loudly picketing Oaksterdam University, Lee’s “cultivation college,” on Election Day. Most wore crudely printed “No on 19” T-shirts and claimed to be irate medical users.

“I have nephews in high school, and they don’t need to be smoking that shit,” said another protester.

Benjamin, who said he uses marijuana medically for insomnia, said he opposes changing the law because “recreational users already go to jail” and risking that is their choice. He also argued that if pot were legal, billionaires would buy out everyone else in the business.

“Marlboro’s not going to grow medical marijuana or marijuana, because it’s still federally illegal,” responded Jeff Jones when they confronted him. He dismissed the protesters as “ignorant, like Tea Partiers.”

Others see a more sinister hand at work. Enraged monologues about impractically omnipotent corporate conspiracies aren’t rare in the weed world, a persecuted subculture that can be somewhere between isolated and secretive and has plenty of urban legends. But belligerent rants in the phraseology of prohibitionist talking points, instant-scruff two-week beards, and crudely trying to pick fights with activists by calling them “faggots” remarkably resemble the tactics used by Vietnam-era agent provocateurs.

The Future

“We’re gonna be back in 2012,” Jeff Jones said at Yes on 19’s closing-night gathering in Oakland, speaking on video to the press and lower-level volunteers out in the parking lot.

Was the off-year campaign premature? Maybe, said Dale Gieringer of California NORML two days before the vote, but “we’re finally looking at the only thing that solves the problem of marijuana prohibition.”

The odds are good for a 2012 campaign that has more resources and has learned from this year’s mistakes. Some groups may try California again. Others are looking at Washington, Oregon, Colorado, Nevada, and Alaska, which have all voted for initiatives to legalize medical marijuana. Revised versions might try to mollify intra-movement critics by including protections for small farmers and establishing a clear statewide regulatory system instead of a patchwork of local options.

It was “absolutely” better to have the vote now rather than wait, Aaron Houston said after the returns came in. “We have to have this conversation. Thirty thousand people have died south of the border.”

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InvisibleLe_Canard
The Duk Abides


Registered: 05/16/03
Posts: 94,392
Loc: Earthfarm 1 Flag
Re: Dedicated Pot Crusaders Already Licking Their Chops for the Next Opportunity to Legalize [Re: veggie]
    #13430106 - 11/03/10 05:13 PM (13 years, 6 months ago)

Yes, that 2012 proposition sounded much more thought out and sensible than Prop. 19, IMHO. And at 46% approving Prop. 19, the 2012 initiative has a real chance of passing.

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OfflineChronicCluster
Lord Cephalopod is Reborn!
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Re: Dedicated Pot Crusaders Already Licking Their Chops for the Next Opportunity to Legalize [Re: Le_Canard]
    #13430181 - 11/03/10 05:27 PM (13 years, 6 months ago)

Quote:

ToiletDuk said:
Yes, that 2012 proposition sounded much more thought out and sensible than Prop. 19, IMHO. And at 46% approving Prop. 19, the 2012 initiative has a real chance of passing.



Ok, I've looked at prop 19, and I've read enough about it to know that there are 'concessions' in there to make it more appealing to people who might be on the fence. (can't drive while intoxicated, blah blah blah)

Does the 2012 prop have those same concessions?
Is there a website that'll show the plain text and then a non-legalese version side-by-side?  (It's like trying to read old english, yeah, you'll eventually figure it out.  Key word. Eventually)

Also NachoHippie has pretty much turned me off to the 2012 prop, what with his posting it every 5 minutes....


Sorry, asking to be spoon-fed, I know...


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Offlinepsillyrabbit
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Registered: 01/06/10
Posts: 39
Last seen: 12 years, 9 months
Re: Dedicated Pot Crusaders Already Licking Their Chops for the Next Opportunity to Legalize [Re: ChronicCluster]
    #13431381 - 11/03/10 09:49 PM (13 years, 6 months ago)

are you really asking for someone else to tell you the facts of a law???
and people wonder how the country has gotten so fucked up it is lazy fucks like you who are ready to jump on the bandwagon to seem like you are a part of something.
looks like nachohippie put the information here for you to make up your own mind I sure hope you dont live in California  :bubbles:

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OfflineChronicCluster
Lord Cephalopod is Reborn!
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Re: Dedicated Pot Crusaders Already Licking Their Chops for the Next Opportunity to Legalize [Re: psillyrabbit]
    #13432361 - 11/04/10 02:05 AM (13 years, 6 months ago)

Quote:

psillyrabbit said:
are you really asking for someone else to tell you the facts of a law???
and people wonder how the country has gotten so fucked up it is lazy fucks like you who are ready to jump on the bandwagon to seem like you are a part of something.
looks like nachohippie put the information here for you to make up your own mind I sure hope you dont live in California  :bubbles:



:facepalm:

I think you totally misunderstood me.
I hate wading through legalese,
I hate trying to figure out what the fuck 'section 2.245 of statute 45' means.

I would just like a plain english translation.
think of it as simple.wikipedia.org.

Oh!  and how about you actually understand what you are talking about before you go around insulting people, yeah?
You'll make more friends that way.


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Offlinemushhead91
Male

Registered: 10/16/10
Posts: 189
Loc: California, USA Flag
Last seen: 12 years, 11 months
Re: Dedicated Pot Crusaders Already Licking Their Chops for the Next Opportunity to Legalize [Re: ChronicCluster]
    #13432470 - 11/04/10 03:08 AM (13 years, 6 months ago)

Quote:

ChronicCluster said:
Also NachoHippie has pretty much turned me off to the 2012 prop, what with his posting it every 5 minutes....





QFT


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InvisibleGreen_T
 User Gallery

Registered: 10/02/08
Posts: 4,042
Loc: UK Flag
Re: Dedicated Pot Crusaders Already Licking Their Chops for the Next Opportunity to Legalize [Re: mushhead91]
    #13432796 - 11/04/10 07:24 AM (13 years, 6 months ago)

Quote:

“If you can have it, why are you fighting so hard for other people to have it?”



:facepalm:

I've done a "word for word" analysis for CCHHI, in Drug Policy Reform. HERE: http://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/13432789#13432789

Also, remember that only a small minority of the "no" votes on prop 19 were from people involved in the marijuana trade, or "stoners against legalization". Most were from people who are afraid schools would lose federal funding, there would be legions of stoned drivers on the highways slaughtering children, it will increase teenage use, people would smoke weed on their work breaks etc.

Unless the campaign of 2012 can address those issues, it will be dead in the water.


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OfflineChronicCluster
Lord Cephalopod is Reborn!
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Re: Dedicated Pot Crusaders Already Licking Their Chops for the Next Opportunity to Legalize [Re: Green_T]
    #13433255 - 11/04/10 10:25 AM (13 years, 6 months ago)

Thats what I was looking for right there!
Thanks!


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