because weed is finally getting mainstream and they can't stop it
While I agree with most of what you post here from time to time Jhhnn, there is no evidence -- absolutely ZERO evidence -- that "existing MMJ businesses" had any effect on the outcome of the vote for Prop 19, pro or contra. There is no evidence that it was "poorly conceptualized", either.
The only effect that any canna business measurably had was Oaksterdam which financed the signature gathering campaign. The End. The rest is smoke and light.
The grim reality is that Prop 19 was lost because those who were middle-aged parents of teens voted against legalization when victory appeared to be imminent. They saw the reality of legalization and they blinked. They did so even though they personally do not have a problem with cannabis and they smoked it when they were younger, too. Their votes were illogical, hypocritical and difficult to parse out on a rational basis -- but that's because those parents voted out of emotion and fear, not reason.
"Not Your Father's Pot"
In my opinion, a significant element in this voting decision is the insidious allegation that today's pot is not the pot of the 60s, 70s and 80s. It is a brilliant piece of propaganda by the prohibitionists that drives a wedge between the older voter's personal experience and their confidence that they are well familiar with today's cannabis. In my view, the "Not Your Father's Pot" argument needs to be met head on and relentlessly treated as another myth. Because make no mistake, it is one of the best political arguments that the prohibitionists have.
These are important lessons to learn and, respectfully, I don't think you learned them. It was never about the details of what was in Prop 19 for the broad mass of voters.
Those middle-aged voters in Cali who voted against their own personal experience with pot didn't go away. They are still likely to vote the same way next time, too. This is a HUGE problem for the legalization movement and nobody knows how to address it. Mostly, people "address it" by ignoring the statistics and demographics and pretending that what happened, didn't and somehow, next time it will all be better.
If next time is 10-12 years from now, maybe. By then, enough of the hardcore prohibitionist seniors will be dead that it might have a chance. Otherwise, unless the rules of the road are fundamentally altered, the same result at the ballot box is likely.
Vested interests, such as Northern California growers and medical-dispensary owners, joined the internal opposition. For them, the system is currently working, so why change it? Without 100% support from California's marijuana smokers and cultivators, Prop 19 didn't stand a chance.
That's not the read a lot of sources have taken on it, at all.
http://www.laweekly.com/2010-11-04/...ted-election-results-legalize-marijuana/full/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-bloom/post_1229_b_780511.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tag/california-prop-19
Your thread is closed, but a couple of years hind sight and we can see CO and WA voted differently than CA and OR did on legalization bills. Perhaps an enlightenment happened in a couple of years or cannabis legalization was voted up or down by the same demographic in the four states (CA WA CO OR) and there were two passes and two fails.
I submit that the fails were because of poorly written bills. If the CA and OR propositions were more like the CO constitutional amendment they wouldn't have failed IMO.
Damn that picture showed me - its funny all you can do is label me a liberal.
I guess thats all you can do when your arguments can't stand by themselves.
That's not the read a lot of sources have taken on it, at all.
http://www.laweekly.com/2010-11-04/...ted-election-results-legalize-marijuana/full/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-bloom/post_1229_b_780511.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tag/california-prop-19
Thankfully, the campaign here in Colorado was better organized, better timed, & striking a better balance between vested interests and personal freedom, getting all the Pro- MJ forces onboard.
We now have A64, which is nearly impossible for Anti- forces to reverse. That's the great thing about constitutional amendments- they can't be legislated away.
Sorry, i cant take somebody who describes the US political/economic system as "Marxist" seriously.
The Feds are going to do what they want. If they are keeping their hands off of CO and WA, it has nothing to do with the 10th amendment.
In a word? Bullshit.
Read the link in my sig. Unlike these guys -- I have numbers, data , graphs and exit polling.
They are wrong. Dead wrong.
The one Huffington Post article you do need to read is Ryan Grim's. His is not noted or mentioned in those links above. I do link to it in my prop 19 Post-mortem though.
Why? Truth hits too hard? Explain Obama's policy's then would you?
"the world must not only be interpreted, it must be transformed." Karl Marx
Oh shit am i a liberal or a commie - don't hurt yourselves trying to figure out what to label me.
Or wait do you even know the difference?
If you asked a Marxist about obama, they would say he is the errand boy of a capitalist elite. Making minor adjustments in policy in order to maintain the status quo and ensure efficient exploitation of the working class.
Marxists reject electoral politics typicaly ,seeing them as inherently corruptive.
I guess if a Marxist were possibly elected, they would be doing thingslike
seizing industry, organizing alternative political structures, redistributing the wealth of the top 1%, dissolving the US constitution, you know things that would actually change the balance of power from capitalist to proletariat.
But then again what billionaire or corporate interest is going to give money for that.
The politics on this forum are a joke.
And you can bet that anyone who makes and sells marijuana outside their system will still be considered a criminal.
i made huge arguments here years ago that if it goes legal we will still criminals because the skew of corporate America on American law and the massive amount of capital at stake and available to profiteers
I only say it because boy did everyone get on my dick for being leery of legalization