Prop 19 Post-Mortem: Crunching the Numbers and Pointing the Finger

[Santa Claus]

Ho Ho Ho! A Canna-Politics Gift!

Ho Ho Ho! A Canna-Politics Gift!

There is a new site dedicated to politics and Legalization of Cannabis in California.

California2012.org

Brand new and looking to grow!

Santa Sez.. Once the Medical gets more entrenched as the main economic realm you won't be able to blast their butts out to vote yes in 2016.

My Red-Eye Elfs say keep it going win or fail. 2012 is the next chance. They said the data looked good to try in 2010 and that was wrong what makes people think it will magically be right in 2016? More Data?

Oh and remember to dress warm it's getting really cold and fast.

Ho Ho Ho!


Christmas Season now starts after October 31st..

 

[Bud-Boy]

whos to say it didnt pass?

GWB wasnt elected...

 

[kmk420kali]

Section 11304b)
This means you better not have more than one harvest on hand at any one time. You better not have more than the average 5x5 garden is producing at any one time.
I harvest a ridiculously large amount for the squre footage I use.
Two harvests equal 50 square feet worth of pot. (ya right)
And it has to be stored in the same 25sf area that it was grown, dried, and cured in.
GO TO COURT AND ARGUE YOUR PERSONAL CONSUMPTION THE SAME WAY MEDICAL USERS DO NOW!!!

Section 11300(iii)
So it is unlawful to put your weed in a safe place other than the grow room it was grown in?
And it has to be in the same 25sf area that it was grown, dried and cured in?


YA I VOTED NO.

Lol...not sure how you managed to get EVERYTHING you said wrong....but you did--

 

[Cannaseur Kid]

Lol...not sure how you managed to get EVERYTHING you said wrong....but you did--

I can't argue with stupidity.

 

[kmk420kali]

I can't argue with stupidity.

I have stopped with the Prop 19 stuff...because it did not pass--
But if you think you have an argument for what you said, bring it on-- I will be happy to show you exactly how you are wrong...and then you will come back with some other jiberish that has nothing to do with anything...so yeah, you're right...fuck it--

 

[BiG H3rB Tr3E]

Section 11304b)
This means you better not have more than one harvest on hand at any one time. You better not have more than the average 5x5 garden is producing at any one time.
I harvest a ridiculously large amount for the squre footage I use.
Two harvests equal 50 square feet worth of pot. (ya right)
And it has to be stored in the same 25sf area that it was grown, dried, and cured in.
GO TO COURT AND ARGUE YOUR PERSONAL CONSUMPTION THE SAME WAY MEDICAL USERS DO NOW!!!

Section 11300(iii)
So it is unlawful to put your weed in a safe place other than the grow room it was grown in?
And it has to be in the same 25sf area that it was grown, dried and cured in?


YA I VOTED NO.

^^^
kmk: are people really this ignorant? i dont claim to be a genius, but i thought for legislature language 19 was relatively easy to understand. but than again if i was against legalization id probably do my best to misinterpret it as much as possible...

 

[In~Plain~Site]

The failure of 19 had nothing to do with taxes and economic profit/loss and everything to do with conservative's morals and social fears. I'm not sure how to curtail these characteristics, but until that happends they will always vote no on mj.

And you have the balls to call others brainwashed?

It couldn't be that 19 was just a bad prop, could it?

MJ is just an ancillary target,if at all, on the larger conservative agenda.At least from my perspective and i'm from the demographic that resoundingly voted it down.

The data has been provided for you in this very thread, seniors, a group that overwhelmingly vote republican,consistently, were actually in favor of 19 (probably because they couldn't read the fine print).The youth vote wasn't going to change the outcome either.

The fact that a proposition like this couldn't pass in the most liberal state in the union should be evidence enough that the bill was flawed in it's approach.

Keep your eye on the prize, but try to stay somewhat realistic in your rationale.

Baby steps

 

[fatigues]

The data has been provided for you in this very thread, seniors, a group that overwhelmingly vote republican,consistently, were actually in favor of 19 (probably because they couldn't read the fine print).The youth vote wasn't going to change the outcome either.

Seniors do not overwhelmingly vote in favor of Republicans. There is a bias, yes, but not an overwhelming one. That is most especially the case in California. That's why Brown won the Gubernatorial race adn why Boxer remains a US Senator in California.

Moreover, the suggestion that seniors supported Prop 19 isn't what the data indicates at all. Seniors supported the bill with only 34% voting yes. That isn't "actually in favor"; far from it. About two-thirds of them voted "no."

The senior vote in Cali at 34% was 2% above the average of 32% in favor of legalization for the above 65 demographic, nationally. I suggest that more liberal political views and a slightly higher past personal experience with marijuana above the national average explains this minor discrepancy with the Gallup Poll National Data taken in early October 2010 (via voice interview).

You don't even have to go there for an explanation, either. The voice interview collection method of Gallup alone can explain the 2% discrepancy. Robopolls yield a 2-4% higher variance in favor of legalization - a suspicion of a reverse "Bradley Effect" which was confirmed at the polls on November 2, 2010.

Either way, the support at 34% is statistically far above the average senior's prior lifetime exerience with marijuana. Look at the graph in the original post. Where the red line is above the green line on the right hand side of the graph? That shows you that the age group in question voted in favor of legalization even though that many in that age group has never tried marijuana in their lifetime -- not even once.

In short: 34% "Yes" is a far cry from being in "favor" of it.

If your spin on all of this is that this was a poorly drafted constitutional amendment and that something that was "better" would have succeeded - there is absolutely no evidence of that in the polling data whatsoever.

If you want to believe in that spin - go ahead. There are hundreds of millions of people who believe in virgin birth, too. That doesn't make it demonstrably true. It makes it a "belief unsupported by any evidence."

Your belief isn't a rational explanation, it isn't supported by the data and while it may accord with your feelings of "truthiness" --- that's a long distance call from "the truth."

We can argue for the next decade about what would be a "better" ballot proposition. These are niceties appreciated by 7% of the population or less -- all of whom used marijuana in the past year -- and the overwhelming majority of which still voted "yes".

To the average voter, these arguments were rarified and beside the point. It was all about legalization - yes or no.

The vote is now in. Legalization lost.

My point throughout this thread has been that misinterpreting the broad brush demographics will lead the movement to do the same things over again -- with the same result.

If we want legalization to ultimately prevail, we need to convince parents of teens and college age kids who have smoked marijuana before during their lifetime that legalization is no threat to their kids. If we can't do that?

We'll lose again next time, no matter the nicities or details of the proposed amendment. It is that simple.

 

[In~Plain~Site]

The prop attempted to bite off more than it could chew...spin that whatever way you like.

You can throw data up all day long, in the end, you'll never know (or understand) why the individual voted the way they did.

I'm in favor of decriminalization, but the prop seemed like it was thumbing its nose at the establishment, which is the goal, it just can't seem like it is.

More and more, people are motivated to vote against something rather than for something.

It worked for Obama in "08", now it's working against him

 

[zen_trikester]

10 lessons learned about prop 19 from the norml blog

10 lessons learned about prop 19 from the norml blog

I thought this was an awesome assessment of where prop 19 failed.

http://blog.norml.org/2010/11/08/10-lessons-learned-from-marijuana-election-defeats/

10 Lessons Learned from Marijuana Election Defeats

November 8th, 2010 By: Russ Belville, NORML Outreach Coordinator
Share this Article

Results of 2010 Election added to our Marijuana Laws Map

Marijuana supporters nationwide awoke on November 3rd to find they had been defeated in all four statewide initiatives on the ballot. While losing these battles is not good news for our movement, the lessons we’ve learned and coalitions we’ve formed will help us win the war even sooner.
California’s Prop 19 received 3.4 million votes for legalization, which represents 46.1% of the voters. This is the best a statewide marijuana legalization measure has ever done, besting Nevada 2002 (39%), Alaska 2004 (44%), Colorado 2006 (41%), and Nevada 2006 (44%)
What turned Westerners' 58% support for legalization into just 46% of the vote in California? Details.

The most recent Gallup Poll showed 58% support among Westerners for “legalization”. That means there are 12% of our supporters who dropped their support for legalization once the details are spelled out. What lessons have we learned from the loss? I believe there are ten main lessons we need to learn to succeed in 2012.
1. We must explicitly protect medical marijuana rights.
During the campaign some on our side were surprised by the emergence of the “I Gots Mine” crowd, the so-called “Stoners Against Legalization”. But the fact is that in a medical marijuana state, especially California, what they “gots” is pretty amazing. Moving forward, any legalization measure in a medical state must include the following three explicit points:
a) This legalization bill will not affect your medical marijuana rights in any way.
b) Your medical marijuana rights will not change in any way once legalization passes.
c) If you are concerned about your medical marijuana rights, please see points a) and b).
I’m being somewhat facetious, but the point better be taken. No legalization bill is going to succeed unless the current medical marijuana smokers believe it makes their lives better or at least doesn’t threaten to change their lives.
Now, I know as well as anyone that Prop 19 wouldn’t have affected medical rights, but it got lost within the Purposes and Intents and buried in a cloud of “notwithstandings” and “excepts”. The next initiative needs to have an explicit declarative paragraph protecting medical rights. And it has to be written in such a way that it is perfectly clear to even the most unlikely, naive, and uneducated voters, which leads me to…
You can't win with legalization that criminalizes part of the largest group of marijuana smokers

2. We must remember that people 18-25 are our biggest group of stakeholders and we cannot over-penalize them to appease our opponents.
The theme that Prop 19 would be creating a crime out of 21-year-olds passing joints to their 18-20-year-old friends resonated among every toker who first smoked a joint with an older friend or sibling. I even heard from people aged 18-20 who thought Prop 19 made them a felon. The new crime was created to soothe the soccer moms, but I think people realized it would be as ineffective at stopping young college kids from toking as the 21 drinking age stops frat keggers, so that all we’d accomplish is creating new criminal records for young people. The next initiative needs to retain the 21+ age (18 just won’t pass when alcohol is 21) but leave the punishment for furnishing to 18-20-year-olds the $100 ticket it is now… or at least don’t make it more punitive than the law for alcohol.
I understand the “make it like alcohol” motivation of punishing someone who furnishes to minors, but the punishment called for by Prop 19 was akin to the punishment for one who furnishes to a teen who then causes serious injury to self or others. The minimum punishment for merely furnishing alcohol, absent injury, is a misdemeanor, a $1,000 fine and 24 hours community service. Thus we were portraying marijuana as far more harmful than alcohol (see point 5 below) by implication.
When Humboldt County is voting against legalization, there is a problem.

3. We must find a way to integrate the current illegal growers into a new legalized market.
The results from the so-called “Emerald Triangle” – defeats for legalization in Humboldt, Mendocino, and Trinity counties – show us that legalization has to be framed to appeal to small time marijuana growers. Putting aside the immorality of profiting from the misery of prohibition, the fact is that many small time growers are paying their mortgage and feeding their families from profits on illegal marijuana. Nobody is going to vote to reduce the price of weed from $300/oz to $60/oz when that takes food out of their kids’ mouths. The next initiative needs to create a level playing field for small businesses to compete in marijuana cultivation. By emphasizing small, local grows, we can increase the grower vote while also soothing pot smokers worried about “WalMartization” and non-tokers worried about pot becoming as ubiquitous as alcohol they see advertised daily nearly everywhere.
Until Americans see the guys standing up as more dangerous than the ones lying down, we can't win

4. We cannot win until people are more scared of prohibition than they are of legalization.
People resist change. In order to shake things up, they need to find the status quo unacceptable and the alternative a moral good. Early on, many of our messages focused on what good would come from legalization, such as tax revenues (see point 6 below) and prioritization of police resources. While these things are good, they don’t tell the story of why it is so critical to change the status quo.
It’s not that legalization must be approved, it is that prohibition must be ended. LEAP speakers made the point that every test on a baggie of pot for a $100 ticket means a crime lab test of a rape kit has to wait, but it came too late to make a commercial out of that point. We need commercials with high school weed dealers in parking lots and hallways, dealing without any regulations or ID checks. We need commercials with indoor marijuana grow factories taking over suburban neighborhoods because there are no legal commercial grows. We need commercials with illegal outdoor grows polluting our state parks. We need commercials of SWAT teams breaking down doors over a pot plant, abusing families, while the rapist, murderer, and thief escape detection. (We need billionaires to kick in big dollars sooner in the campaign so we can get these commercials on air.) All these commercials that would use scenes prohibitionists use against us need to be used against them in an act of rhetorical judo that shows those evils to be the result of the prohibitionary status quo, not the proposed marijuana legalization. The next initiative campaign needs to scare people about the out-of-control prohibition situation we have now. Which leads to the corollary…
To some, this just means we're arresting too many blacks, not that the arrest itself is wrong.

5. We must stop painting the marijuana as a bad thing that needs to be controlled.
We did a great job with exposing the racially disproportionate nature of marijuana law enforcement. We’ve shown how much money is spent enforcing marijuana laws and how the cost of doing so is diverting police resources. We’ve illustrated the violent nature of the drug trade, particularly in Mexico.
None of that really matters, though, until we honestly address the social disapproval of “smoking pot”. The underlying premise of prohibition is that we are forbidding adults from an activity for all of our own good. Without addressing the morality of marijuana, the flaws we point out in prohibition are just kinks in the system that need to be improved, not an indictment of the reason for the system. We’re locking up too many blacks and Latinos? We’ll just try to be more fair about arresting all races equally, then. We spend a lot of money going after pot? How much is too much to spend to keep your kids safe? Gangsters are violent in the marijuana trade? That’s why we need to arrest people, so they’ll stop smoking pot. See how that works?
The next initiative campaign must do more pro-active positive portrayals of marijuana for adults. It is not enough to campaign against the bad guy (prohibition), you have to have a story arc for the good guy (legal marijuana use). People need to question why we bother arresting bright, successful, educated people and break up their loving families just because they prefer sensimilla to a six-pack or a cigarette. However, as we tell the good guy’s story…
When you put up a number, you'd better be ready to defend it. When it's a number from a different bill, you're sunk.

6. We must be realistic about what legalization can and cannot accomplish.
As marijuana activists, we’re already starting with a deficit in the public trust column. So when we make our case, we have to be diligent about never over-promising what good can be realized by ending prohibition, especially if we attach hard numbers to those promises. It is too easy to become characterized as the glassy-eyed idealists who believe too much in the magic wonder herb when we supply targets that are so easily shot down.
Both the primary offenses in messaging can be traced to some honest mistakes. First was the claim that Prop 19 would raise $1.4 billion in taxes for California. This arose from the legislature’s legalization bill, AB 390, which proposed a statewide $50/ounce tax. Then the California Board of Equalization crunched the numbers and announced that $1.4 billion could be realized. Then AB 390 failed and Prop 19 took over, but never distanced itself from the $1.4 billion tax revenues and in a few instances, co-opted the $1.4 billion for internet forums and print. When Prop 19 instituted no required taxes and any taxes would be local, not statewide, everyone, even Prop 19’s supporters, knew that far less than $1.4 billion would be raised. Then when the Attorney General vowed to aggressively pursue anyone who opened up a Prop 19 shop, we all knew there would be even less taxes raised.
Next was the implication that Prop 19 would be a significant blow to Mexican drug cartels. Part of this owes to misinformation from the drug czar’s office, which had publicized the stat that 60% of the Mexican cartel income is raised from marijuana. But Prop 19 advocates could be faulted for accepting a drug czar’s word on anything, as well as not knowing their home state marijuana market well enough to realize nobody in California is smoking much Mexican brick weed. Combined with the “billions in taxes” saving the state, the “cripple the cartels” message was easily debunked and left us looking like we’re bullshitting the voters. The next initiative must be careful about promises and always return the focus to any modest gains from ending prohibition being more than what we’re getting now.
We have a drug test here at NORML... "Do you recognize this leaf?"

7. Legalize first, then deal with the drug testing issue.
You won’t find anyone who hates drug testing more than me. It’s inaccurate, unscientific, ineffective, and a disgusting invasion of our right to privacy. And I was thrilled to see non-discrimination language regarding drug testing in Prop 19. But tackling the drug testing issue along with the legalization issue presents too many conflicts for most voters.
Again, it’s about the good guy and the bad guy. The good guy is drug test that protects us at work from the bad guy, the whacked-out druggies. Many people are fine with you smoking a joint and getting whacked-out at home, but want to be sure you’re not smoking a joint at work or while driving. The drug testing language gave opponents a wedge to separate business owners, managers, and responsible workers from supporting us.
The next initiative needs to remain focused on the sole issue of ending the criminalization of people who smoke and grow pot. Once marijuana use is legal, and as the image of marijuana use becomes mainstreamed, the drug testing issue will be easier to work out. It would be considered ridiculous in most circumstances to have a work policy that accepted only teetotalers and punished someone for having a drink Friday night because he’d be dangerous on Monday morning. When marijuana is legal, soon those policies for pot will seem as ridiculous. Now, speaking of drug testing…
Objects in mirror may be fatter than they appear.

8. You can’t “treat it like alcohol” unless you can test for it like alcohol on the roadside.
We often use the phrase “treat it like alcohol” to get through to voters with little knowledge of marijuana (indeed, if they were educated, they’d realize treating cannabis like alcohol is an insult to cannabis.) But every time we do, we activate many long-held frames about alcohol, and one of those is “shit-faced drunks who drive”.
The “stoned drivers” scare is one of the few effective bits of rhetoric our opponents have left, along with “what about the children”? We insisted that Prop 19 didn’t at all change the cops’ ability to bust a stoned driver, but I believe this just did not overcome a gut feeling for most people that it would, because we could offer them no new tools for law enforcement to watch over stoned drivers while creating a more lenient state for marijuana users.
The next initiative must work with the “treat it like alcohol” frame by providing a “breathalyzer” equivalent for the stoned driver. This is the hardest part for me to write, because I so loathe drug testing and even the breathalyzer, which really does not prove anyone’s actual impairment. All any drug test proves is that you’ve used drugs, alcohol included. Some alcoholics can drive fine at a 0.12 BAC; some lightweights are a danger at 0.04 BAC. But since the public believes in the breathalyzer as a magical scientific instrument than can detect and help punish drunk drivers, and since we’re engaging them in the “treat it like alcohol” frame, they need something more tangible than “we’ll just bust them like we do now”, which rings hollow when the general public knows we bust the stoned driver (impaired or not) now just for having weed in his pocket or a roach in the ashtray. There are technologies available – blood testing, cheek-swab saliva testing, epocrine gland (armpit) sweat testing – that can show recent use of marijuana within four hours. That, along with a “no burnt cannabis / no used paraphernalia” in the car rule to match the alcohol-equivalent “no open containers” would go a long way toward negating the “stoned drivers” scare.
People barely trust their city council to be able to handle potholes on Main Street, much less regulating the third most popular recreational substance

9. Commercialization must be handled with consistent statewide regulation.
Prop 19 designed its commercial regulations to be opt-in, with cities and counties each deciding if they wished to have regulated sales and how they would regulate them. The reasoning for this is sound, as the proponents wanted the commercial regs to stand up to federal court scrutiny, the theory being that since Prop 19 didn’t explicitly tell the state to allow marijuana commerce in violation of federal law, the commercial regs might not violate the Commerce Clause.
However, as a rhetorical piece to convince voters, it was lacking. Most people don’t trust their city government or believe it to be ineffective. Opponents were able to conjure a future where there were hundreds of different pot regulations across the state. This becomes troubling in a crowded Southern California where driving down one strip of road can pass you through multiple city jurisdictions that are visually indistinct from one another. Am I in City of Industry that allows me to have 2 ounces in personal possession or am I in La Puente that only allows one? How will our stores in Torrance collect their 10% marijuana tax when just up the road in Gardena they only charge 5%?
The next initiative must establish a statewide commercial regulatory framework. It will probably be squashed by the federal courts, but it will be better to have legal marijuana first and fight those commercial battles in court than to have prohibition and no chance in court. Once people have the legal right to possess, use, and grow marijuana, the commerce will inevitably follow (see: medical marijuana everywhere.)
Most people don't think of medicine in the same context as getting an ear piercing

10. Medical marijuana has reached its peak and is now inextricably linked to legalization.
In California, the people are already accustomed to a fairly open marijuana policy, where anyone who wants to toke can get a Prop 215 recommendation and buy it from many dispensaries. In the North it’s a well-regulated system that is contributing to clean neighborhoods and city tax revenues. You can see by the county results map above that most of the support comes from the Bay Area where cities and counties put together regulations and ordinances and created a healthy system. Why wouldn’t people vote for more of that?
But in the South it’s a “Wild West” system with tent after tent of “pot docs” on Venice Beach that can’t spell “cannabis” and carnival barkers pushing the “4-gram eighth”. This is the fault of the local officials who refused to put forth any sort of regulations, but that’s lost on the average voter. All they see is that what they have now is pot run wild. Why would people vote for more of that?
While legalization support has increased in eleven years, medical marijuana has declined.

In South Dakota, a medical marijuana initiative failed in 2006 with 48% of the vote. In 2010, South Dakota’s support for medical marijuana dropped to 36%. In Arizona they passed a flawed medical marijuana initiative (it used “prescription”, not “recommendation”) with 65% in 1996. In 2010, it got just below 50% of the vote. In Oregon a measure to create medical marijuana dispensaries lost with 42% of the vote in 2004. In 2010, the dispensaries measure gained slightly with 43% of the vote.
This is reflected in Gallup polls on both medical marijuana and marijuana legalization. In 1999, support for legalization was just 29%, while support for medical use was 73%. It’s fair to say that people who believe in legalization would naturally support medical use, so the difference of 44% in 1999 would represent those who believe in medical use but think people who just want to get high should be punished. By the mid-2000s, medical marijuana support reached 75%-78% and legalization reached 34%-36%, meaning those who support medical-only dropped to 31%-32%. Now in 2010 we have legalization support at 46% while medical support has fallen to 70%, leaving only 24% who believe in medical-only.
Similar initiatives in Arizona, Oregon, and South Dakota for medical marijuana declined while the second Prop 19 for legalization in California increased.

The reason for this 20-point decline in medical-only support is that the public is beginning to feel hoodwinked on the medical marijuana issue. They completely support the cancer, AIDS, and glaucoma patients getting their medications, but have seen too many dispensaries, too many healthy-looking young people, too many huge marijuana gardens, too many large volume busts, and too many patients overall to believe that medical marijuana is anything but thinly-veiled legalization. Now that California, the first medical state, has gone forward with legalization, and since the previous legalization attempts were also in medical marijuana states (Nevada, Colorado, Alaska), the two issues are linked. This means the next medical initiatives and bills will have to be even more restrictive to convince the doubters who cry “Trojan horse!”
The next initiative needs to highlight the second-class-citizen nature of medical marijuana laws that can only be solved by full legalization. The legalization campaign needs to bring forth those same medical marijuana patients who played to public sympathy to get medical marijuana and show how even with medical marijuana, they are still harassed, arrested, tried, and convicted because they’re swept up in the overall battle law enforcement must engage with healthy marijuana smokers. People need to see the patients who lose housing, lose scholarships, lose child custody, suffer home invasion robberies, can’t travel outside the state, and hear from the patients themselves that medical marijuana just isn’t good enough.
And one thing we don’t need to do? Change the word “marijuana” to “cannabis”. I’ve heard this suggestion a few times, but I think it actually works against us. You and I know that “marijuana” is a Mexican slang term initially used for racist reasons to confuse and frighten the public. But now “marijuana” is the familiar brand name everyone knows. When we run from “marijuana” and only say “cannabis”, “marijuana” is emphasized by its absence. Why won’t they say “marijuana”? What are they trying to hide? What’s wrong with marijuana? It’s like when liberals go out of their way to call themselves “progressives” or when conservatives felt the need to emphasize “compassionate”; it’s distancing yourself from your own brand – if you don’t like it, why should anyone else?
The next initiative needs to just be honest: The Marijuana Legalization Act of 2012. There is nothing wrong with that linguistically or even ethically, as the laws on the books that this would repeal are “marijuana laws” – they use the term “marijuana” (or sometimes “marihuana”) in the statutes. We can, and should, pepper in the word “cannabis” as we explain the act, using it as the proper name of the plant species, but not be afraid to talk about “smoking marijuana” when the public brings it up. By now, people know the plant by the name “marijuana” and that name, in and of itself, doesn’t denigrate it in their minds any more than the less-familiar “cannabis” promotes it.

 

[Herborizer]

I thought this was an awesome assessment of where prop 19 failed.

http://blog.norml.org/2010/11/08/10-lessons-learned-from-marijuana-election-defeats/

10 Lessons Learned from Marijuana Election Defeats

November 8th, 2010 By: Russ Belville, NORML Outreach Coordinator

A great read. I also agree with what it says for the most part.

Sadly, I believe that so many Cannabis enthusiasts are going to flagship the Jack Hearer bill, which is a non-starter. If you have any clue about our laws and how they get passed by the public, you would instantly reject the Jack Hearer bill because it's a non-starter.

Even more sad, is that what Russ talks about above, it is what I believe will be what it takes to get legalization in California moving forward. Though, this new bill that he is talking about seems like a lesser version of Prop 19. This is something I felt all along, that if we don't pass Prop 19 in 2010, we will be settling for something even smaller in 2012..... who knows if the 2012 bill will even pass.

Either way, I will be supporting any reasonable legalization bill that comes forward. Even if it is just a stepping stone.

Just my 2c.

 

[mr noodles]

hell will froze before mj will be legal ...

some have no lucidity when it come to evaluate the proportion of the prop 19 disaster . those who grow and laugh and celebrate the no victory will cry tomorrow....mark my words .

 

[BiG H3rB Tr3E]

The prop attempted to bite off more than it could chew...spin that whatever way you like.

You can throw data up all day long, in the end, you'll never know (or understand) why the individual voted the way they did.

I'm in favor of decriminalization, but the prop seemed like it was thumbing its nose at the establishment, which is the goal, it just can't seem like it is.

More and more, people are motivated to vote against something rather than for something.

It had nothing to do with the language and everything to do with huge turnout of teabaggers and republicans who consistently vote in majority against more lax marijuana laws.

Even if we had every elgible youth under 30 vote yes on 19, it still wouldn't have been enough to overcome the 45+ demographic who overwelmingly voted against it.

 

[Bacchus]

.... That's why Brown won the Gubernatorial race adn why Boxer remains a US Senator in California...

It had nothing to do with the language and everything to do with huge turnout of teabaggers and republicans who consistently vote in majority against more lax marijuana laws.

These 2 facts do not compute....if a majority of Republicans had shown up then you would have had a different Governor and Senator.

As you are both saying

we need to convince parents of teens

and those in that age group to vote yes.

 

[In~Plain~Site]

It had nothing to do with the language and everything to do with huge turnout of teabaggers and republicans who consistently vote in majority against more lax marijuana laws.

Even if we had every elgible youth under 30 vote yes on 19, it still wouldn't have been enough to overcome the 45+ demographic who overwelmingly voted against it.

These 2 facts do not compute....if a majority of Republicans had shown up then you would have had a different Governor and Senator.

As you are both saying and those in that age group to vote yes.

I'm glad i'm not the only one seeing the confusion/bias in his logic.

Prop 215 passes, then the most liberal state in the union is overrun with teabaggers and shoots down 19, while keeping liberals at the helm.

Couldn't have been a bad prop, must be those damned teabaggers movin' in that voted for Brown and what'sherface(call me senator)

Take a look at an electoral map and be glad you're in Cali with 215 still in tact.

 

[zen_trikester]

It will be interesting for sure between now and 2012. Especially if Cooley ends up winning. I also think the next version will be more restrictive.

Jed

 

[kmk420kali]

1 out of 10 young voters voted-- I cannot believe that if the rest had voted, that it wouldn't have been different--
Whatever...it is over for now--

 

[shasta]

how did we get this far? What will it take to take this political shit fall into place? Continue to Overgrow, nothing more, nothing less.

 

[arcticsun]

Face it, there is a large % of growers who are fully economically dependent on growing weed. Meaning they have no side income besides growing.


Panicked threads made by growers who were afraid of loosing their livelyhood has been rampant on the boards. Topics like "how to prevent weed prices from deflating rapidly" has been the main focus in the debate.


The consequence of a movement that is so dependent on the black market is that its very easily manipulated with money. This cali prop 19 debate has been nothing but a market debate and a money debate. I propose that its easyer to get the public to stand behind the subject of medical cannabis which is an issue that concerns the weakest in society first of all then it is to get the public to support a movement that is hugely colored by black market money.


Here is a tune you can listen to while you contemplate what to do next... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFVdTw4PwE0

 

[arcticsun]

The main lesson to learn after this is to focus on the people who are innocently in jail because of this and not on the people who are living luxury superstar lifestyles with loads of drugs and money.