Anger or cowardice never lead to a reasonable end... I'd like to see neither.
An unwavering passion or blind bravery both lead to the same unreasonable end.
Think about it.
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Vote YES or NO on Prop 19
- Thread starter Feb2006er
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Anger or cowardice never lead to a reasonable end... I'd like to see neither.
An unwavering passion or blind bravery both lead to the same unreasonable end.
Think about it.
We should know if it passed on the night of nov 2.
T
tonto
thanks, and does it become law right away?
how do you juxtapose your stated disdain for cowardice with the incessant cowardly sniveling by the prohibitionist crowd?
Shit's about to get real.
WasntMe
Member
Former surgeon general calls for marijuana legalization:
http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/10/1...paign=Feed:+rss/cnn_latest+(RSS:+Most+Recent)
Prop 19: A Sticky Situation For California
Lauren Tarnofsky | October 20, 2010
Staff Reporter
(Creative Commons)Come on California, show me the money... and by money I mean weed.
As most California residents are already aware, Proposition 19 is sparking quite the debate for this Fall’s California ballot. As the November 2nd election quickly approaches, voters, marijuana-smokers and non-smokers alike, must look past the surface facts on the issue.
The two foundations the legalization debate is built upon are money and Mexico. California has already taken its first baby steps towards full recreational legalization: in 1996, voters passed Proposition, which legalized medicinal marijuana with consent of a doctor; and Governor Schwarzenegger recently signed SB 1449, which will turn the possession of less than an ounce of marijuana from a criminal misdemeanor into a civil infraction starting January 1, 2011.
If proposition 19 is approved by voters, it will legalize marijuana for recreational use in nonpublic places, allow local governments to regulate activities in their regions, permit the collection of fees and taxes on marijuana and authorize various criminal and civil penalties. The proposition allows for the collection of taxes specifically to allow local governments to raise revenue or to offset any costs associated with marijuana regulation. The California state legislature has estimated that taxing domestically grown marijuana (a previously untaxed $14 billion industry) would bring in $1.4 billion a year.
Californians consume an estimated 500 tons of pot each year. While legalization could increase consumption by 50 percent or more, it would also cut the price of weed by roughly 80 percent.
The day of recreational legalization would also be synonymous with the day of death for a lot of dealers and farm-growers; however, it would also significantly curb the amount of money the state authorities spend on enforcing marijuana laws.
The RAND Corporation found that cannabis enforcement by the police and special agencies costs upwards of $300 million a year. Not to mention the amount of money taxpayers shell out in order to house “petty-pot criminals” in jails. Those cells could be, and should be, used for housing other dangerous criminals.
Legalization would also bring some benefits to safety, because California would be able to rely less on Mexico’s influence in the marijuana industry. Researchers from a NORML report conclude that legalizing pot in California “would effectively eliminate Mexican drug trafficking organizations’ (DTOs) revenues from supplying Mexican-grown marijuana to the California market… even with taxes, legally produced marijuana would likely cost no more than would illegal marijuana from Mexico." The new legal market would also help eliminate illegally-run Mexican grows, and in turn could in turn even provide jobs. Mexico’s officials do not support the passage of Prop 19 either, for both economic and moral reasons.
Weed has been medically recorded as having less negative effects and deaths related to it than alcohol or tobacco. In fact, seventy-eight years ago, Californians overwhelmingly voted for the repeal of a little socially, economically, and morally failed issue known as alcohol prohibition. California voters fought then, and they will again.
Still, we cannot forget those nasty, unwanted seeds and stems in the issue that pro-legalization activists ought to consider before they eagerly check the box. If pot becomes legal in California under state law, it will still be illegal under federal law. This issue has caused much trouble for medical marijuana users who, even under proposition 215, are condemnable by federal agents for arrest.
While the federal government wouldn’t be able to require California law officials to help them enforce the federal law, the police and the Obama administration plan on doing so. L.A. County Sheriff, Lee Baca, has already publicly stated that even if the proposition passes, he will tell his officers to disregard the voters decision, saying “Proposition 19 is not going to pass, even if it passes." Although highly unlikely due to the amount of other issues facing our policy makers currently, “the only sure way to legalize marijuana is for Congress to pass a law taking management of the drug away from the FDA."
There are a few other purple hairs in the mix that aren’t so good. The legislation for the proposition is far from well written. It maintains an employer’s right to address consumption of pot that affects an employers’ job performance, but weed in the work place still raises many concerns. Due to the way the legislation is written, employers would not be able to pre-emptively remove workers who smell of/look like they are under the influence of marijuana, even if they perform sensitive jobs like operating heavy machinery or running medical procedures and tests; they could only to take action after an accident. This is an alarming safety matter that ought to be rewritten in the legislature.
Regardless of the poorly-written legislation and the hesitancy of the federal government to turn a blind eye to its legalization in California, hopefully California won’t be coasting on a dream for too long. Marijuana is a recreationally and medically used drug whose users will continue to use it whether Prop 19 passes or not. Win or lose November 2nd, Prop. 19 will not be the end of the fight towards legalization.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/10/1...paign=Feed:+rss/cnn_latest+(RSS:+Most+Recent)
Prop 19: A Sticky Situation For California
Lauren Tarnofsky | October 20, 2010
Staff Reporter
(Creative Commons)Come on California, show me the money... and by money I mean weed.
As most California residents are already aware, Proposition 19 is sparking quite the debate for this Fall’s California ballot. As the November 2nd election quickly approaches, voters, marijuana-smokers and non-smokers alike, must look past the surface facts on the issue.
The two foundations the legalization debate is built upon are money and Mexico. California has already taken its first baby steps towards full recreational legalization: in 1996, voters passed Proposition, which legalized medicinal marijuana with consent of a doctor; and Governor Schwarzenegger recently signed SB 1449, which will turn the possession of less than an ounce of marijuana from a criminal misdemeanor into a civil infraction starting January 1, 2011.
If proposition 19 is approved by voters, it will legalize marijuana for recreational use in nonpublic places, allow local governments to regulate activities in their regions, permit the collection of fees and taxes on marijuana and authorize various criminal and civil penalties. The proposition allows for the collection of taxes specifically to allow local governments to raise revenue or to offset any costs associated with marijuana regulation. The California state legislature has estimated that taxing domestically grown marijuana (a previously untaxed $14 billion industry) would bring in $1.4 billion a year.
Californians consume an estimated 500 tons of pot each year. While legalization could increase consumption by 50 percent or more, it would also cut the price of weed by roughly 80 percent.
The day of recreational legalization would also be synonymous with the day of death for a lot of dealers and farm-growers; however, it would also significantly curb the amount of money the state authorities spend on enforcing marijuana laws.
The RAND Corporation found that cannabis enforcement by the police and special agencies costs upwards of $300 million a year. Not to mention the amount of money taxpayers shell out in order to house “petty-pot criminals” in jails. Those cells could be, and should be, used for housing other dangerous criminals.
Legalization would also bring some benefits to safety, because California would be able to rely less on Mexico’s influence in the marijuana industry. Researchers from a NORML report conclude that legalizing pot in California “would effectively eliminate Mexican drug trafficking organizations’ (DTOs) revenues from supplying Mexican-grown marijuana to the California market… even with taxes, legally produced marijuana would likely cost no more than would illegal marijuana from Mexico." The new legal market would also help eliminate illegally-run Mexican grows, and in turn could in turn even provide jobs. Mexico’s officials do not support the passage of Prop 19 either, for both economic and moral reasons.
Weed has been medically recorded as having less negative effects and deaths related to it than alcohol or tobacco. In fact, seventy-eight years ago, Californians overwhelmingly voted for the repeal of a little socially, economically, and morally failed issue known as alcohol prohibition. California voters fought then, and they will again.
Still, we cannot forget those nasty, unwanted seeds and stems in the issue that pro-legalization activists ought to consider before they eagerly check the box. If pot becomes legal in California under state law, it will still be illegal under federal law. This issue has caused much trouble for medical marijuana users who, even under proposition 215, are condemnable by federal agents for arrest.
While the federal government wouldn’t be able to require California law officials to help them enforce the federal law, the police and the Obama administration plan on doing so. L.A. County Sheriff, Lee Baca, has already publicly stated that even if the proposition passes, he will tell his officers to disregard the voters decision, saying “Proposition 19 is not going to pass, even if it passes." Although highly unlikely due to the amount of other issues facing our policy makers currently, “the only sure way to legalize marijuana is for Congress to pass a law taking management of the drug away from the FDA."
There are a few other purple hairs in the mix that aren’t so good. The legislation for the proposition is far from well written. It maintains an employer’s right to address consumption of pot that affects an employers’ job performance, but weed in the work place still raises many concerns. Due to the way the legislation is written, employers would not be able to pre-emptively remove workers who smell of/look like they are under the influence of marijuana, even if they perform sensitive jobs like operating heavy machinery or running medical procedures and tests; they could only to take action after an accident. This is an alarming safety matter that ought to be rewritten in the legislature.
Regardless of the poorly-written legislation and the hesitancy of the federal government to turn a blind eye to its legalization in California, hopefully California won’t be coasting on a dream for too long. Marijuana is a recreationally and medically used drug whose users will continue to use it whether Prop 19 passes or not. Win or lose November 2nd, Prop. 19 will not be the end of the fight towards legalization.
WasntMe
Member
The latest from NoOnProposition19.com:
San Diego Union-Tribune says Prop 19 “May Be the Worst Drafted Legislation Since 1996”; Visalia Times-Delta says Initiative adds “Confusion Without Delivering Regulation, Revenue”
Oct 18|11:38
Sacramento - The editorial boards of the San Diego Union-Tribune, and the Visalia Times-Delta today urged their readers to vote NO on Proposition 19, the poorly-written initiative to legalize the recreational use of marijuana in California.
The San Diego Union-Tribune editorial focuses on the “legal and law enforcement chaos” Proposition 19 would create:
“Proposition 19…may be the worst drafted legislation since 1996...”
“It would allow every one of California’s nearly 480 cities and each of its 58 counties to develop their own regulation and tax schemes for the cultivation, processing, distribution, transportation and sale of marijuana. In San Diego County alone, that could mean 19 separate sets of regulations and taxes – one for the unincorporated areas and one for each of the 18 cities. That provision alone is an invitation to law enforcement chaos….”
“In addition, the proposition would create… a “legal quagmire” for employers up and down the state. A business would be limited to addressing marijuana use to situations where it could prove that an employee’s job performance was actually impaired, making a mockery of employer efforts to create a safe, drug-free workplace.”
The Visalia Times-Delta focuses on the ambiguity in the language of the flawed initiative:
“The bigger problems are from other provisions of Proposition 19: It would allow local governments to authorize, regulate and tax commercial marijuana-related activities, including production, transportation and sale. But Proposition 19 doesn't offer any specific guidelines on how to do that.”
“Does that allow a county, for instance, to allow marijuana farms of any size? Would licenses be required? When could marijuana be taxed, at sale or production, or both? And by how much? What happens when different localities pass different rules?”
“Things are confusing enough about marijuana as it is. Proposition 19 only adds to the confusion without delivering regulation, revenue or consistency.”
The Union-Tribune and the Times-Delta become the 39th and 40th California daily newspapers to join a long list of editorial boards that have come out against Proposition 19 including: Bakersfield Californian; Chico Enterprise-Record; Contra Costa Times; (Palm Springs) Desert Sun; Fresno Bee; Gilroy Dispatch; Inland Valley Daily Bulletin; La Opinión; Lompoc Record; Long Beach Press-Telegram; L.A. Daily News; L.A. Times; Marin Independent Journal; Merced Sun-Star; Monterey County Herald; Modesto Bee; Napa Valley Register; North County Times; Oakland Tribune; Paradise Post; Pasadena Star News; Redding Record-Searchlight; Riverside Press-Enterprise; Sacramento Bee; San Bernardino Sun; San Francisco Chronicle; San Gabriel Valley Tribune; San Jose Mercury News; Santa Clarita Signal; Santa Cruz Sentinel; Santa Rosa Press Democrat; Santa Ynez Valley News; Stockton Record; Torrance Daily Breeze; Ukiah Daily Journal; Vallejo Times-Herald; Ventura County Star; and Whittier Daily News.
The full editorials are linked here: (San Diego Union-Tribune) (Visalia Times-Delta)
Statement from No on Prop 19 on Obama Administration Opposition to Prop 19
Oct 18|08:50
SACRAMENTO - According to news reports, President Barack Obama’s Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., “in a letter sent Wednesday to nine former chiefs of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, wrote, ‘Let me state clearly that the Department of Justice strongly opposes Proposition 19. If passed, this legislation will greatly complicate federal drug enforcement efforts to the detriment of our citizens.’”
The following is a statement from No on Prop 19 spokesman Roger Salazar on the announcement:
“The reasons keep mounting to oppose Proposition 19 and this latest news from the Obama administration should give undecided voters pause as they consider the poorly-worded measure.
“Let’s take stock of where we are:
No revenue guarantees: The California Board of Equalization says that it cannot determine how much, if any, revenue would be generated by Proposition 19 because it neither establishes a regulatory framework nor does it impose any taxes on marijuana.
No controls: Prop 19 contains no prohibition against driving after smoking marijuana meaning anyone, even school bus drivers and heavy equipment operators, can smoke up right up until they get behind the wheel of a vehicle.
No reduction of illegal drug trafficking or violence: The Rand report released earlier this week notes that legalizing marijuana in California would not appreciably influence the Mexican drug trafficking organizations and the related violence.
“Now the federal government says it will vigorously enforce marijuana laws ‘against those individuals and organizations that possess, manufacture or distribute marijuana for recreational use, even if such activities are permitted under state law.’
“This sets up a situation where the Feds could withhold billions in federal education funds while cracking down on California’s marijuana industry. It begs the question: Why would anyone vote for this mess of a proposition?”
San Diego Union-Tribune says Prop 19 “May Be the Worst Drafted Legislation Since 1996”; Visalia Times-Delta says Initiative adds “Confusion Without Delivering Regulation, Revenue”
Oct 18|11:38
Sacramento - The editorial boards of the San Diego Union-Tribune, and the Visalia Times-Delta today urged their readers to vote NO on Proposition 19, the poorly-written initiative to legalize the recreational use of marijuana in California.
The San Diego Union-Tribune editorial focuses on the “legal and law enforcement chaos” Proposition 19 would create:
“Proposition 19…may be the worst drafted legislation since 1996...”
“It would allow every one of California’s nearly 480 cities and each of its 58 counties to develop their own regulation and tax schemes for the cultivation, processing, distribution, transportation and sale of marijuana. In San Diego County alone, that could mean 19 separate sets of regulations and taxes – one for the unincorporated areas and one for each of the 18 cities. That provision alone is an invitation to law enforcement chaos….”
“In addition, the proposition would create… a “legal quagmire” for employers up and down the state. A business would be limited to addressing marijuana use to situations where it could prove that an employee’s job performance was actually impaired, making a mockery of employer efforts to create a safe, drug-free workplace.”
The Visalia Times-Delta focuses on the ambiguity in the language of the flawed initiative:
“The bigger problems are from other provisions of Proposition 19: It would allow local governments to authorize, regulate and tax commercial marijuana-related activities, including production, transportation and sale. But Proposition 19 doesn't offer any specific guidelines on how to do that.”
“Does that allow a county, for instance, to allow marijuana farms of any size? Would licenses be required? When could marijuana be taxed, at sale or production, or both? And by how much? What happens when different localities pass different rules?”
“Things are confusing enough about marijuana as it is. Proposition 19 only adds to the confusion without delivering regulation, revenue or consistency.”
The Union-Tribune and the Times-Delta become the 39th and 40th California daily newspapers to join a long list of editorial boards that have come out against Proposition 19 including: Bakersfield Californian; Chico Enterprise-Record; Contra Costa Times; (Palm Springs) Desert Sun; Fresno Bee; Gilroy Dispatch; Inland Valley Daily Bulletin; La Opinión; Lompoc Record; Long Beach Press-Telegram; L.A. Daily News; L.A. Times; Marin Independent Journal; Merced Sun-Star; Monterey County Herald; Modesto Bee; Napa Valley Register; North County Times; Oakland Tribune; Paradise Post; Pasadena Star News; Redding Record-Searchlight; Riverside Press-Enterprise; Sacramento Bee; San Bernardino Sun; San Francisco Chronicle; San Gabriel Valley Tribune; San Jose Mercury News; Santa Clarita Signal; Santa Cruz Sentinel; Santa Rosa Press Democrat; Santa Ynez Valley News; Stockton Record; Torrance Daily Breeze; Ukiah Daily Journal; Vallejo Times-Herald; Ventura County Star; and Whittier Daily News.
The full editorials are linked here: (San Diego Union-Tribune) (Visalia Times-Delta)
Statement from No on Prop 19 on Obama Administration Opposition to Prop 19
Oct 18|08:50
SACRAMENTO - According to news reports, President Barack Obama’s Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., “in a letter sent Wednesday to nine former chiefs of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, wrote, ‘Let me state clearly that the Department of Justice strongly opposes Proposition 19. If passed, this legislation will greatly complicate federal drug enforcement efforts to the detriment of our citizens.’”
The following is a statement from No on Prop 19 spokesman Roger Salazar on the announcement:
“The reasons keep mounting to oppose Proposition 19 and this latest news from the Obama administration should give undecided voters pause as they consider the poorly-worded measure.
“Let’s take stock of where we are:
No revenue guarantees: The California Board of Equalization says that it cannot determine how much, if any, revenue would be generated by Proposition 19 because it neither establishes a regulatory framework nor does it impose any taxes on marijuana.
No controls: Prop 19 contains no prohibition against driving after smoking marijuana meaning anyone, even school bus drivers and heavy equipment operators, can smoke up right up until they get behind the wheel of a vehicle.
No reduction of illegal drug trafficking or violence: The Rand report released earlier this week notes that legalizing marijuana in California would not appreciably influence the Mexican drug trafficking organizations and the related violence.
“Now the federal government says it will vigorously enforce marijuana laws ‘against those individuals and organizations that possess, manufacture or distribute marijuana for recreational use, even if such activities are permitted under state law.’
“This sets up a situation where the Feds could withhold billions in federal education funds while cracking down on California’s marijuana industry. It begs the question: Why would anyone vote for this mess of a proposition?”
Where do they get this from? That's a very serious charge and it would be nice if they can back it up. Is there some general provision of law that prohibits removal of workers who are intoxicated on legal substances from workplace unless such removal is specifically allowed by law?
WasntMe
Member
The latest on YesON19.com:
Legal pot means big savings on law enforcement
POSTED ON
Oct 21, 2010
AUTHOR
Aaron Smith
SOURCE
CNN Money
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Cash-strapped California would get some relief by legalizing pot, but the biggest boost would be thanks to massive law enforcement cuts, not new tax revenue, experts say.
The state's marijuana legalization initiative known as Proposition 19 goes to the polls on Nov. 2. And there's been a lot of talk about taxing it to rescue the state from its budget woes. But even legalization's top advocates say the drug won't be a financial cure-all.
"No one's promising that this is going to solve everything economically," said Quintin Mecke, spokesman for Assembly Member Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, who was the lead sponsor on two earlier efforts to legalize marijuana.
Most of the financial benefit would actually come from budget cuts - which means job cuts -- according to a report from the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank in Washington, D.C. The institute estimates that legalization could add $1.312 billion annually to California's coffers. But the forecast's breakdown calls for a savings of $960 million in law enforcement costs and an additional $352 million in tax revenue.
Jeffrey Miron, a senior lecturer at Harvard University and senior fellow at the Cato Institute who co-authored the study, said the majority of the cost savings would be a result of cuts to law enforcement personnel whose services would no longer be required. And axing police officers, prison guards, prosecutors and judges would hurt the job market, at least initially, he said.
That leaves an estimated $352 million in annual tax revenue, a tally that Miron described as "not irrelevant, but not very consequential." He said it's a welcome bonus for Californians who prefer legalization regardless, but it's not enough to sway those who oppose it.
"I think that California is being somewhat optimistic in thinking that this is going to make a significant difference to its budget situation," said Miron, who supports legalization. "I think it won't do much for the economy."
Coming up with a tax revenue forecast for Prop 19 is difficult.
Ammiano's previous legalization bills, which died in assembly, included a statewide tax of $50 per ounce that would be imposed on producers. Based on that, the State Board of Equalization estimated that California could raise $990 million - in addition to $392 million in sales taxes.
But that estimate isn't relevant to Prop19, according to Anita Gore, spokeswoman for the board.
Unlike Ammiano's bills, Prop19 wouldn't make marijuana legal on a statewide basis. Instead, it would have a patchwork effect, giving local governments the power to allow or prohibit pot sales, and to impose taxes or fees on marijuana sales in addition to a sales tax.
"Any sale would be taxable, so there would be sales taxes collected," said Gore. "But beyond that, we don't know how many localities would approve the sale and how many other fees would be added."
Adding to the complexity, local governments in California that legalize marijuana sales would impose their own tax rate, which varies from one area to the next. In addition, some local governments might impose an excise tax on retailers and producers, while others might not.
"There are too many unknowns to be able to come up with a revenue estimate," said Gore.
Dale Gieringer, director of the California chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, otherwise known as NORML, has a more optimistic take on potential tax revenue, but even he says it will be a very long time before the state sees any of those funds.
Gieringer said that taxes from medical marijuana total about $100 million annually, and that based on that, Prop 19 could bring in about $500 million in annual sales taxes for the state.
But that's going to take years to kick in, even if Prop 19 passes in November, he said. Local governments considering legalization will take some time to consider the benefits of additional tax revenue versus the threat of federal lawsuits, since the drug would still be illegal under federal law.
Gieringer added that medical marijuana was legalized in California in 1996, but said it took another eight or nine years to spread across the state.
"I'm assuming that we're looking at a similar long term phase-in of Prop 19," he said. "It's going to be many years, if 19 passes, before it's going to take effect on the whole state."
Cops Under Pressure To Deny They Support Legalizing Marijuana
POSTED ON
Oct 21, 2010
AUTHOR
Lucia Graves
SOURCE
Huffington Post
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During California gubernatorial debates last week, Meg Whitman was asked about her position on Proposition 19 and marijuana legalization and said: "Every single law enforcement official in this entire state is against Proposition 19."
Former San Jose Chief of Police Joseph McNamara disagrees.
"She's absolutely wrong," said McNamara. "A lot of police officers both retired and on duty are in favor of passing it because they realize that the 'war on drugs' has failed and is going to fail."
For example, McNamara noted, hundreds have joined the advocacy group Law Enforcement Against Prohibition.
"I think she misstated what she believed," he said.
Whitman's office did not immediately respond to a HuffPost query requesting clarification.
One thing is true: California's active-duty police officers can't speak up in favor of legalizing marijuana for fear of losing their jobs.
For instance, scores of former officials recently signed a letter saying that marijuana prohibition only fuels more dangerous crime by enriching Mexican drug cartels who put guns on American streets -- but every member of the California police department waited until after they'd retired to sign.
HuffPost talked with cops who support Prop. 19 about the element of suppression.
"It's difficult, there are all kinds of factors that inhibit police officers from taking a public stance," said David Bratzer, a police officer for the Victoria Police Department in British Columbia who supports legalizing the drug. "They're worried about career advancement; harassment from colleagues or supervisors -- these are all issues that serving police officers have to consider."
Bratzer told HuffPost in an interview Wednesday night that even though many law enforcement officers will agree with him privately, only a handful of cops have been willing to make their opinions known publicly.
"The paramilitary structure of law enforcement discourages police officers from speaking out against the status quo even if that status quo is causing enormous damage in terms of wasted lives and resources," said Bratzer, who was careful to emphasize to HuffPost that his views are his alone and should not be attributed to his police department.
Groups ranging from The National Black Police Association to the California NAACP haveendorsed Prop. 19, arguing that police waste valuable resources targeting non-violent cannabis consumers, while thousands of violent crimes go unsolved. Still most officers wait until they've left their jobs in law enforcement to take a stand.
"I was with the LAPD when Nixon declared the 'war on drugs' over 40 years ago and was one of the 'generals' on the front lines who helped implement that same failed drug policy that is still in effect today," said Stephen Downing, a retired LAPD deputy chief of police.
"By keeping marijuana illegal, we aren't preventing anyone from using it," added Downing in a statement. "The only results are billions of tax-free dollars being funneled into the pockets of bloodthirsty drug cartels and gangs who control the illegal market."
Downing is not the only former police chief who has come out against prohibition.
McNamara, now a research fellow in drug policy at Stanford University, has argued that the 60 percent of the cash that supports violent drug cartels comes from the sale of illegal marijuana.
"I think many veteran officers start out as I did being a drug war warrior," explained McNamara, who, since he began studying drug policy academically, has become increasingly convinced that the problem is prohibition not the plant.
"We were participants in the war on marijuana," he said. "But after a while, I realized that the majority of the cops I hired during my 18 years as a police chief had used marijuana before we hired them."
"I don't personally use it," he said, "but I think it's really stupid to put people in jail for that reason."
Still, McNamara insists there are good reasons for cops not to speak out in favor of marijuana legalization while they're on active duty.
"You take an oath to support the law, not just the laws you agree with," he told HuffPost in an interview. "You're under the authority of elected officials and so you can't speak out on policy issues in opposition to what your superiors say."
If police officers feel they can't enforce a law in good conscience, they can always leave. But often, McNamara said, they don't.
"People don't commit career suicide," he said. "So they do the best they can. Whether they agree with them or not, they have to carry out the laws." When he was a cop, McNamara said he tried to keep things in perspective. "I did, within the area of my discretion, enforce the law with as much common sense as I could," he said.
A poll of 1,067 likely voters released Thursday found 44 percent of likely voters said they plan to vote for Prop. 19, while 49 percent plan to vote against it. That's an 8-point drop in support since September when 52 percent of likely voters said they would vote for it.
"Personally I think it's a shame that more serving California police officers are not supporting reform publicly," said Bratzer. "History will remember this as a failure of leadership at the highest levels of law enforcement in the state."
Why conservatives should favor legalizing marijuana
POSTED ON
Oct 21, 2010
AUTHOR
Evan Wood
SOURCE
CNN
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If there is one clear emotion emerging before November's U.S. congressional elections, it is that citizens across the political spectrum are worried about government spending and a perceived lack of government accountability regarding where tax dollars are spent.
Oddly, the government's approach to the illegal drug problem -- which has cost U.S. taxpayers more than $2.5 trillion since former President Richard Nixon first declared America's "war on drugs" -- has been largely immune from this concern.
One dramatic exception is California, where Proposition 19, which proposes to "regulate, control and tax cannabis," will be on the statewide ballot on November 2. In California alone, the illegal market for cannabis, or marijuana, has been estimated to be worth about $14 billion per year, and the legalization initiative aims to redirect the flow of these massive profits from violent drug cartels toward government coffers.
Although the full financial impact of legalization cannot be known, cannabis law enforcement in California is estimated to cost taxpayers anywhere between $200 million and $1.9 billion each year, whereas the State Board of Equalization has estimated that taxation could generate $1.4 billion a year in new tax revenue.
As the vote approaches, a clear division in political support for Proposition 19 has emerged, with a recent Reuters-Ipsos poll showing that 54 percent of Democrats support legalization as Republican support sits at 33 percent. This division is curious, given that cannabis prohibition takes its biggest toll on the traditional conservative wish list of fiscal discipline, low crime rates and strong families.
In fact, as detailed in a report published this month by my organization, the International Centre for Science in Drug Policy, research funded by none other than the U.S. government clearly demonstrates the failure of marijuna prohibition. For instance, government reports demonstrate that even as federal funding for anti-drug efforts has increased from $1.5 billion in 1981 to more than $20 billion today, surveillance systems show that marijuana's estimated potency has increased by 145 percent and its price has declined by 58 percent since 1990.
At a 1991 lecture titled "The Drug War as a Socialist Enterprise," conservative economist Milton Friedman noted: "There are some general features of a socialist enterprise, whether it's the post office, schools or the war on drugs. The enterprise is inefficient, expensive, very advantageous to a small group of people and harmful to a lot of people."
Friedman, who won the Nobel Prize in 1976 for his achievements in the fields of "consumption analysis," had strong views about the certain failure of the war on drugs, which are shared by most economists who stress that costly efforts to remove the drug supply by building prisons and locking up drug dealers have the perverse effect of making it much more profitable for new drug dealers to get into the market.
This explains why surveillance systems funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health concluded that over the last 30 years, cannabis has remained "almost universally available to American 12th-graders," with between 80 percent and 90 percent saying the drug is "very easy" or "fairly easy" to obtain.
Friedman was also vocal about the unintended consequences of the war on drugs, including the enrichment of organized crime and drug market violence. As he wrote in The New York Times: "The young are not dissuaded by the bullets that fly so freely in disputes between competing drug dealers -- bullets that fly only because dealing drugs is illegal. Al Capone epitomizes our earlier attempt at Prohibition; the Crips and Bloods epitomize this one."
In this context, consider that about 28,000 people have died in drug market violence in Mexico since 2006, when Mexican President Felipe Calderón declared a war on drugs in that country, and that the U.S. government once estimated that Mexican drug trafficking organizations derive 60 percent of their revenue from cannabis exports to the United States.
The war on drugs has also had a devastating impact on families. Primarily as a result of drug law enforcement, one in nine African-American males in the 25-to-29 age group is incarcerated on any given day in the U.S., despite statistics that show ethnic minorities consume illicit drugs at rates comparable to those of other ethnic groups in the U.S.
In California, where the government spends more on prisons than post-secondary education, a recent report estimated that the cannabis possession arrest rate for African-Americans in Los Angeles County is more than 300 percent higher than that for whites. This disparity has emerged despite data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which has consistently shown that young African-Americans are less likely to use cannabis than whites.
In addition to both the racial and budgetary implications of this failed experiment, sociologists and criminologists are decrying the intergenerational effects of these policies on low-income families, as children left behind by incarcerated parents turn to gangs and the cycle continues.
One explanation for the persistently high support for cannabis prohibition is the concern that ending the war on cannabis will result in increased use. Interestingly, comparisons between the U.S. and the Netherlands, where cannabis is de facto legalized, indicate that despite the U.S.'s record rates of anti-drug enforcement expenditures, 42 percent of U.S. adults report that they have used cannabis, which is more than twice as high as that observed in the Netherlands, where only 20 percent report a history of cannabis use.
While some U.S. economists predict that rates of cannabis use could increase in California under legalization, they have generally ignored the potential benefits of the broad range of strict regulatory tools -- including licensing systems for vendors, purchasing controls and sales restrictions -- that have all proved effective at reducing rates of use and related harms of tobacco and alcohol.
As described earlier this month in an article published in the influential British Medical Journal, Robin Room stressed the need for an urgent consideration of the benefits of cannabis regulatory systems, especially given that successful government lobbying by the tobacco and alcohol industries have slowly eroded or eliminated many of these effective regulatory mechanisms in the U.S.
As Friedman said, "If you look at the drug war from a purely economic point of view, the role of the government is to protect the drug cartel." Recent estimates suggest that national regulation of cannabis in the United States would result in savings of more than $44 billion a year on enforcement expenditures alone.
Conservatives should look at the ongoing legacy of the failed war on drugs, in light of their traditional commitment to stronger families, economies and societies, and reconsider supporting drug policies that only serve to weaken American society.
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The key to winning this election and reforming California's cannabis laws will be the passion, support, and engagement of people like you.
Like an increasing number of law enforcers, I have learned that most bad things about marijuana - especially the violence made inevitable by an obscenely profitable black market - are caused by the prohibition, not by the plant.
– JOSEPH MCNAMARA
Former San Jose Police Chief
Legal pot means big savings on law enforcement
POSTED ON
Oct 21, 2010
AUTHOR
Aaron Smith
SOURCE
CNN Money
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Cash-strapped California would get some relief by legalizing pot, but the biggest boost would be thanks to massive law enforcement cuts, not new tax revenue, experts say.
The state's marijuana legalization initiative known as Proposition 19 goes to the polls on Nov. 2. And there's been a lot of talk about taxing it to rescue the state from its budget woes. But even legalization's top advocates say the drug won't be a financial cure-all.
"No one's promising that this is going to solve everything economically," said Quintin Mecke, spokesman for Assembly Member Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, who was the lead sponsor on two earlier efforts to legalize marijuana.
Most of the financial benefit would actually come from budget cuts - which means job cuts -- according to a report from the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank in Washington, D.C. The institute estimates that legalization could add $1.312 billion annually to California's coffers. But the forecast's breakdown calls for a savings of $960 million in law enforcement costs and an additional $352 million in tax revenue.
Jeffrey Miron, a senior lecturer at Harvard University and senior fellow at the Cato Institute who co-authored the study, said the majority of the cost savings would be a result of cuts to law enforcement personnel whose services would no longer be required. And axing police officers, prison guards, prosecutors and judges would hurt the job market, at least initially, he said.
That leaves an estimated $352 million in annual tax revenue, a tally that Miron described as "not irrelevant, but not very consequential." He said it's a welcome bonus for Californians who prefer legalization regardless, but it's not enough to sway those who oppose it.
"I think that California is being somewhat optimistic in thinking that this is going to make a significant difference to its budget situation," said Miron, who supports legalization. "I think it won't do much for the economy."
Coming up with a tax revenue forecast for Prop 19 is difficult.
Ammiano's previous legalization bills, which died in assembly, included a statewide tax of $50 per ounce that would be imposed on producers. Based on that, the State Board of Equalization estimated that California could raise $990 million - in addition to $392 million in sales taxes.
But that estimate isn't relevant to Prop19, according to Anita Gore, spokeswoman for the board.
Unlike Ammiano's bills, Prop19 wouldn't make marijuana legal on a statewide basis. Instead, it would have a patchwork effect, giving local governments the power to allow or prohibit pot sales, and to impose taxes or fees on marijuana sales in addition to a sales tax.
"Any sale would be taxable, so there would be sales taxes collected," said Gore. "But beyond that, we don't know how many localities would approve the sale and how many other fees would be added."
Adding to the complexity, local governments in California that legalize marijuana sales would impose their own tax rate, which varies from one area to the next. In addition, some local governments might impose an excise tax on retailers and producers, while others might not.
"There are too many unknowns to be able to come up with a revenue estimate," said Gore.
Dale Gieringer, director of the California chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, otherwise known as NORML, has a more optimistic take on potential tax revenue, but even he says it will be a very long time before the state sees any of those funds.
Gieringer said that taxes from medical marijuana total about $100 million annually, and that based on that, Prop 19 could bring in about $500 million in annual sales taxes for the state.
But that's going to take years to kick in, even if Prop 19 passes in November, he said. Local governments considering legalization will take some time to consider the benefits of additional tax revenue versus the threat of federal lawsuits, since the drug would still be illegal under federal law.
Gieringer added that medical marijuana was legalized in California in 1996, but said it took another eight or nine years to spread across the state.
"I'm assuming that we're looking at a similar long term phase-in of Prop 19," he said. "It's going to be many years, if 19 passes, before it's going to take effect on the whole state."
Cops Under Pressure To Deny They Support Legalizing Marijuana
POSTED ON
Oct 21, 2010
AUTHOR
Lucia Graves
SOURCE
Huffington Post
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During California gubernatorial debates last week, Meg Whitman was asked about her position on Proposition 19 and marijuana legalization and said: "Every single law enforcement official in this entire state is against Proposition 19."
Former San Jose Chief of Police Joseph McNamara disagrees.
"She's absolutely wrong," said McNamara. "A lot of police officers both retired and on duty are in favor of passing it because they realize that the 'war on drugs' has failed and is going to fail."
For example, McNamara noted, hundreds have joined the advocacy group Law Enforcement Against Prohibition.
"I think she misstated what she believed," he said.
Whitman's office did not immediately respond to a HuffPost query requesting clarification.
One thing is true: California's active-duty police officers can't speak up in favor of legalizing marijuana for fear of losing their jobs.
For instance, scores of former officials recently signed a letter saying that marijuana prohibition only fuels more dangerous crime by enriching Mexican drug cartels who put guns on American streets -- but every member of the California police department waited until after they'd retired to sign.
HuffPost talked with cops who support Prop. 19 about the element of suppression.
"It's difficult, there are all kinds of factors that inhibit police officers from taking a public stance," said David Bratzer, a police officer for the Victoria Police Department in British Columbia who supports legalizing the drug. "They're worried about career advancement; harassment from colleagues or supervisors -- these are all issues that serving police officers have to consider."
Bratzer told HuffPost in an interview Wednesday night that even though many law enforcement officers will agree with him privately, only a handful of cops have been willing to make their opinions known publicly.
"The paramilitary structure of law enforcement discourages police officers from speaking out against the status quo even if that status quo is causing enormous damage in terms of wasted lives and resources," said Bratzer, who was careful to emphasize to HuffPost that his views are his alone and should not be attributed to his police department.
Groups ranging from The National Black Police Association to the California NAACP haveendorsed Prop. 19, arguing that police waste valuable resources targeting non-violent cannabis consumers, while thousands of violent crimes go unsolved. Still most officers wait until they've left their jobs in law enforcement to take a stand.
"I was with the LAPD when Nixon declared the 'war on drugs' over 40 years ago and was one of the 'generals' on the front lines who helped implement that same failed drug policy that is still in effect today," said Stephen Downing, a retired LAPD deputy chief of police.
"By keeping marijuana illegal, we aren't preventing anyone from using it," added Downing in a statement. "The only results are billions of tax-free dollars being funneled into the pockets of bloodthirsty drug cartels and gangs who control the illegal market."
Downing is not the only former police chief who has come out against prohibition.
McNamara, now a research fellow in drug policy at Stanford University, has argued that the 60 percent of the cash that supports violent drug cartels comes from the sale of illegal marijuana.
"I think many veteran officers start out as I did being a drug war warrior," explained McNamara, who, since he began studying drug policy academically, has become increasingly convinced that the problem is prohibition not the plant.
"We were participants in the war on marijuana," he said. "But after a while, I realized that the majority of the cops I hired during my 18 years as a police chief had used marijuana before we hired them."
"I don't personally use it," he said, "but I think it's really stupid to put people in jail for that reason."
Still, McNamara insists there are good reasons for cops not to speak out in favor of marijuana legalization while they're on active duty.
"You take an oath to support the law, not just the laws you agree with," he told HuffPost in an interview. "You're under the authority of elected officials and so you can't speak out on policy issues in opposition to what your superiors say."
If police officers feel they can't enforce a law in good conscience, they can always leave. But often, McNamara said, they don't.
"People don't commit career suicide," he said. "So they do the best they can. Whether they agree with them or not, they have to carry out the laws." When he was a cop, McNamara said he tried to keep things in perspective. "I did, within the area of my discretion, enforce the law with as much common sense as I could," he said.
A poll of 1,067 likely voters released Thursday found 44 percent of likely voters said they plan to vote for Prop. 19, while 49 percent plan to vote against it. That's an 8-point drop in support since September when 52 percent of likely voters said they would vote for it.
"Personally I think it's a shame that more serving California police officers are not supporting reform publicly," said Bratzer. "History will remember this as a failure of leadership at the highest levels of law enforcement in the state."
Why conservatives should favor legalizing marijuana
POSTED ON
Oct 21, 2010
AUTHOR
Evan Wood
SOURCE
CNN
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If there is one clear emotion emerging before November's U.S. congressional elections, it is that citizens across the political spectrum are worried about government spending and a perceived lack of government accountability regarding where tax dollars are spent.
Oddly, the government's approach to the illegal drug problem -- which has cost U.S. taxpayers more than $2.5 trillion since former President Richard Nixon first declared America's "war on drugs" -- has been largely immune from this concern.
One dramatic exception is California, where Proposition 19, which proposes to "regulate, control and tax cannabis," will be on the statewide ballot on November 2. In California alone, the illegal market for cannabis, or marijuana, has been estimated to be worth about $14 billion per year, and the legalization initiative aims to redirect the flow of these massive profits from violent drug cartels toward government coffers.
Although the full financial impact of legalization cannot be known, cannabis law enforcement in California is estimated to cost taxpayers anywhere between $200 million and $1.9 billion each year, whereas the State Board of Equalization has estimated that taxation could generate $1.4 billion a year in new tax revenue.
As the vote approaches, a clear division in political support for Proposition 19 has emerged, with a recent Reuters-Ipsos poll showing that 54 percent of Democrats support legalization as Republican support sits at 33 percent. This division is curious, given that cannabis prohibition takes its biggest toll on the traditional conservative wish list of fiscal discipline, low crime rates and strong families.
In fact, as detailed in a report published this month by my organization, the International Centre for Science in Drug Policy, research funded by none other than the U.S. government clearly demonstrates the failure of marijuna prohibition. For instance, government reports demonstrate that even as federal funding for anti-drug efforts has increased from $1.5 billion in 1981 to more than $20 billion today, surveillance systems show that marijuana's estimated potency has increased by 145 percent and its price has declined by 58 percent since 1990.
At a 1991 lecture titled "The Drug War as a Socialist Enterprise," conservative economist Milton Friedman noted: "There are some general features of a socialist enterprise, whether it's the post office, schools or the war on drugs. The enterprise is inefficient, expensive, very advantageous to a small group of people and harmful to a lot of people."
Friedman, who won the Nobel Prize in 1976 for his achievements in the fields of "consumption analysis," had strong views about the certain failure of the war on drugs, which are shared by most economists who stress that costly efforts to remove the drug supply by building prisons and locking up drug dealers have the perverse effect of making it much more profitable for new drug dealers to get into the market.
This explains why surveillance systems funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health concluded that over the last 30 years, cannabis has remained "almost universally available to American 12th-graders," with between 80 percent and 90 percent saying the drug is "very easy" or "fairly easy" to obtain.
Friedman was also vocal about the unintended consequences of the war on drugs, including the enrichment of organized crime and drug market violence. As he wrote in The New York Times: "The young are not dissuaded by the bullets that fly so freely in disputes between competing drug dealers -- bullets that fly only because dealing drugs is illegal. Al Capone epitomizes our earlier attempt at Prohibition; the Crips and Bloods epitomize this one."
In this context, consider that about 28,000 people have died in drug market violence in Mexico since 2006, when Mexican President Felipe Calderón declared a war on drugs in that country, and that the U.S. government once estimated that Mexican drug trafficking organizations derive 60 percent of their revenue from cannabis exports to the United States.
The war on drugs has also had a devastating impact on families. Primarily as a result of drug law enforcement, one in nine African-American males in the 25-to-29 age group is incarcerated on any given day in the U.S., despite statistics that show ethnic minorities consume illicit drugs at rates comparable to those of other ethnic groups in the U.S.
In California, where the government spends more on prisons than post-secondary education, a recent report estimated that the cannabis possession arrest rate for African-Americans in Los Angeles County is more than 300 percent higher than that for whites. This disparity has emerged despite data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which has consistently shown that young African-Americans are less likely to use cannabis than whites.
In addition to both the racial and budgetary implications of this failed experiment, sociologists and criminologists are decrying the intergenerational effects of these policies on low-income families, as children left behind by incarcerated parents turn to gangs and the cycle continues.
One explanation for the persistently high support for cannabis prohibition is the concern that ending the war on cannabis will result in increased use. Interestingly, comparisons between the U.S. and the Netherlands, where cannabis is de facto legalized, indicate that despite the U.S.'s record rates of anti-drug enforcement expenditures, 42 percent of U.S. adults report that they have used cannabis, which is more than twice as high as that observed in the Netherlands, where only 20 percent report a history of cannabis use.
While some U.S. economists predict that rates of cannabis use could increase in California under legalization, they have generally ignored the potential benefits of the broad range of strict regulatory tools -- including licensing systems for vendors, purchasing controls and sales restrictions -- that have all proved effective at reducing rates of use and related harms of tobacco and alcohol.
As described earlier this month in an article published in the influential British Medical Journal, Robin Room stressed the need for an urgent consideration of the benefits of cannabis regulatory systems, especially given that successful government lobbying by the tobacco and alcohol industries have slowly eroded or eliminated many of these effective regulatory mechanisms in the U.S.
As Friedman said, "If you look at the drug war from a purely economic point of view, the role of the government is to protect the drug cartel." Recent estimates suggest that national regulation of cannabis in the United States would result in savings of more than $44 billion a year on enforcement expenditures alone.
Conservatives should look at the ongoing legacy of the failed war on drugs, in light of their traditional commitment to stronger families, economies and societies, and reconsider supporting drug policies that only serve to weaken American society.
Join the Campaign
Donate
Make your secure contribution today, so we can win in November.
Volunteer
The key to winning this election and reforming California's cannabis laws will be the passion, support, and engagement of people like you.
Like an increasing number of law enforcers, I have learned that most bad things about marijuana - especially the violence made inevitable by an obscenely profitable black market - are caused by the prohibition, not by the plant.
– JOSEPH MCNAMARA
Former San Jose Police Chief
Thanks for all those updates, Wasntme.
WasntMe
Member
i find it very interesting to see the different perspectives and angles that each side is taking as the vote gets closer. As usual with these hot issues, it seems the closer the vote comes the more drastic the examples are that each side uses to get it's point across. I suspect it will continue in this direction. And the closer we get I expect the claims to paired with researchable documentation less and less.
I would not be surprised, on Nov 1st, to hear claims along the lines of:
Pros: ending Cannabis prohibition will end world hunger and cure cancer.
Con: making Pot legal will turn every citizen into brain eating zombies and be the cause of the final apocalypse.
i suspect the news and propaganda generated in the next week or so will get many people more then just frustrated.
Whatever side any of you are on I hope that you are at least looking open minded to both side's info and what they are saying.
My family and I... and all my service brothers and sisters over the past couple of centuries have been happy to put our lives on the line to give our people the right to be able to vote on important issues like this. I hope you all honor us by going out and exercising that right we earned for you. Whatever side you are on, please go and vote.
I would not be surprised, on Nov 1st, to hear claims along the lines of:
Pros: ending Cannabis prohibition will end world hunger and cure cancer.
Con: making Pot legal will turn every citizen into brain eating zombies and be the cause of the final apocalypse.
i suspect the news and propaganda generated in the next week or so will get many people more then just frustrated.
Whatever side any of you are on I hope that you are at least looking open minded to both side's info and what they are saying.
My family and I... and all my service brothers and sisters over the past couple of centuries have been happy to put our lives on the line to give our people the right to be able to vote on important issues like this. I hope you all honor us by going out and exercising that right we earned for you. Whatever side you are on, please go and vote.
BowlFinger
Member
Definite yes
T
tonto
bigbrokush
Active member
Republicans, women, older voters fueling opposition to marijuana legalization in Cali
Republicans, women, older voters fueling opposition to marijuana legalization in Cali
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lan...na-legalization-in-california-new-poll-f.html
Republicans, women, older voters fueling opposition to marijuana legalization in California, new poll finds
October 22, 2010 | 8:15 am
As celebrities rallied in Hollywood to support legalizing marijuana in California, the latest Times/USC poll shows a major generational and political divide on the question.
The poll found that Republicans overwhelmingly oppose Proposition 19, the initiative that would legalize marijuana. As The Times' John Hoeffel reported Friday morning, there is also a big gap based on age: "Likely voters younger than 40 are in favor of it by 48% to 37%, but older voters, who say they are more enthusiastic about voting in this election, are not. Among likely voters 65 and over, only 28% support the measure, while 59% said they were opposed."
Woman were also leaning against the proposition.
Overall, the poll found Proposition 19 trailing badly.
The ballot measure has not generated a huge amount of buzz in Hollywood, but two big names -- actor Danny Glover and singer Melissa Etheridge -- on Thursday offered their support for the proposal.
Many major California politicians have come out against the measure.
Republicans, women, older voters fueling opposition to marijuana legalization in Cali
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lan...na-legalization-in-california-new-poll-f.html
Republicans, women, older voters fueling opposition to marijuana legalization in California, new poll finds
October 22, 2010 | 8:15 am
As celebrities rallied in Hollywood to support legalizing marijuana in California, the latest Times/USC poll shows a major generational and political divide on the question.
The poll found that Republicans overwhelmingly oppose Proposition 19, the initiative that would legalize marijuana. As The Times' John Hoeffel reported Friday morning, there is also a big gap based on age: "Likely voters younger than 40 are in favor of it by 48% to 37%, but older voters, who say they are more enthusiastic about voting in this election, are not. Among likely voters 65 and over, only 28% support the measure, while 59% said they were opposed."
Woman were also leaning against the proposition.
Overall, the poll found Proposition 19 trailing badly.
The ballot measure has not generated a huge amount of buzz in Hollywood, but two big names -- actor Danny Glover and singer Melissa Etheridge -- on Thursday offered their support for the proposal.
Many major California politicians have come out against the measure.
I believe that would be because Stoners alone can't pass this...there simply are not enough of us...even if we were all on the same side--
I think a lot of ppl who don't smoke, don't see any reason why it should be illegal...but they aren't losing any sleep over it--
whoops, double posted.
IMB
IMB
This article expands on the subject...
This article expands on the subject...
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2010/10/22/majority-of-voters-oppose-prop-19-new-poll-shows/
Majority of voters oppose Prop. 19, new poll shows
By: CNN's Alison Harding
(CNN) - A new poll indicates that a majority of likely voters in California oppose the state's proposition to legalize marijuana.
According to a USC/Los Angeles Times Poll, 51 percent of likely voters said they would vote against Proposition 19, which would allow people 21 years-old or older to possess, cultivate, or transport marijuana for personal use. Thirty-nine percent of likely voters said they support the measure.
Support for the ballot initiative also varies widely by age and race, according to the poll. Fifty-five percent of likely voters aged 18-29 said they support the measure, while 60 percent of those over the age of 65 oppose legalizing marijuana. Only 28 percent of those 65 and older said they support the measure. Latino voters indicated the strongest opposition to Prop 19. Fifty-seven percent said they opposed the measure, compared to 48 percent of white voters, and 49 percent of black voters.
Proponents of Prop 19 say it would generate much needed revenue and cut drug enforcement costs. The California Attorney General's office estimated that the measure has the potential to bring in hundreds of millions of dollars annually in taxes and fees, while saving the state tens of millions of dollars annually on costs related to incarceration and supervision of marijuana offenders.
But opponents, including the U.S. Justice Department and former heads of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, say the measure violates federal law and endangers public safety. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said last week that the Justice Department will continue to enforce federal law regardless of the outcome of the ballot initiative. Federal law prohibits individuals and organizations from possessing, manufacturing, or distributing marijuana for recreational use.
The USC/LA Times poll was conducted by the Democratic polling firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, in conjunction with Republican polling firm American Viewpoint. It surveyed more than 1,500 registered voters from October 13-20, with a likely voter sample of 878 voters.
This article expands on the subject...
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2010/10/22/majority-of-voters-oppose-prop-19-new-poll-shows/
Majority of voters oppose Prop. 19, new poll shows
By: CNN's Alison Harding
(CNN) - A new poll indicates that a majority of likely voters in California oppose the state's proposition to legalize marijuana.
According to a USC/Los Angeles Times Poll, 51 percent of likely voters said they would vote against Proposition 19, which would allow people 21 years-old or older to possess, cultivate, or transport marijuana for personal use. Thirty-nine percent of likely voters said they support the measure.
Support for the ballot initiative also varies widely by age and race, according to the poll. Fifty-five percent of likely voters aged 18-29 said they support the measure, while 60 percent of those over the age of 65 oppose legalizing marijuana. Only 28 percent of those 65 and older said they support the measure. Latino voters indicated the strongest opposition to Prop 19. Fifty-seven percent said they opposed the measure, compared to 48 percent of white voters, and 49 percent of black voters.
Proponents of Prop 19 say it would generate much needed revenue and cut drug enforcement costs. The California Attorney General's office estimated that the measure has the potential to bring in hundreds of millions of dollars annually in taxes and fees, while saving the state tens of millions of dollars annually on costs related to incarceration and supervision of marijuana offenders.
But opponents, including the U.S. Justice Department and former heads of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, say the measure violates federal law and endangers public safety. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said last week that the Justice Department will continue to enforce federal law regardless of the outcome of the ballot initiative. Federal law prohibits individuals and organizations from possessing, manufacturing, or distributing marijuana for recreational use.
The USC/LA Times poll was conducted by the Democratic polling firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, in conjunction with Republican polling firm American Viewpoint. It surveyed more than 1,500 registered voters from October 13-20, with a likely voter sample of 878 voters.
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