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YouGov/Economist Poll Finds Most Americans Support Marijuana Legalization
By Jacob Sullum
A new YouGov poll commissioned by The Economist finds most Americans support marijuana legalization. Here is the question:
Some people say marijuana should be treated like alcohol and tobacco. They say it should be regulated and taxed and made illegal for minors. Do you agree?
Fifty-eight percent of respondents said they agreed, while only 23 percent disagreed. The remaining 19 percent had no opinion. This is the strongest support for legalization that I can recall seeing in a nationally representative poll. A Gallup poll in late October found that 46 percent of Americans favored legalization, a record for that organization’s surveys. (By comparison, support was under 30 percent in Gallup polls taken during the late 1970s, a time that today is remembered as relatively pot-tolerant.) As far as I know, the only other survey to find majority support for legalizing pot was a May 2009 Zogby poll in which 52 percent of respondents favored that position. The question in that survey was pretty slanted in favor of legalization, however.
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Drug Policy During the Obama Administration: An Assessment
Ethan Nadelmann — Drug Policy During the Obama Administration: An Assessment from Hungarian Civil Liberties Union on Vimeo.
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#450 Proposition 19 Could End Mexico’s Drug War
Date: Sat, 4 Sep 2010
Subject: #450 Proposition 19 Could End Mexico’s Drug WarPROPOSITION 19 COULD END MEXICO’S DRUG WAR
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DrugSense FOCUS Alert #450 – Sunday, September 5th, 2010
Today the Washington Post printed the OPED below which provides a view
of Proposition 19 from south of the border.Your letters to the editor will let the newspaper know you appreciate
the newspaper’s providing readers with this viewpoint.Proposition 19 news clippings may be found at http://mapinc.org/find?272
The Proposition 19 website is at http://yeson19.com/
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#449 Just Say No To The Drug Czars
Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2010
Subject: #449 Just Say No To The Drug CzarsJUST SAY NO TO THE DRUG CZARS
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DrugSense FOCUS Alert #449 – Wednesday, August 25nd, 2010
Today the Los Angeles Times printed the opinion of drug czars, past
and present.As drug czars are required to do by law they selected their “facts”
for their propaganda effect.Your letters to the editor will let the newspaper know that there are
other valid views.Proposition 19 news clippings may be found at http://www.mapinc.org/topic/Proposition+19
Please note the new Proposition 19 website at http://yeson19.com/ -
and please do whatever you can to support the effort.**********************************************************************
Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)
Page: A17
Copyright: 2010 Los Angeles Times
Contact: http://mapinc.org/url/bc7El3Yo
Authors: Gil Kerlikowske, John Walters, Barry McCaffrey, Lee Brown,
Bob Martinez, William BennettNote: This commentary was written by Gil Kerlikowske, John Walters,
Barry McCaffrey, Lee Brown, Bob Martinez and William Bennett,
directors of the Office of National Drug Control Policy in the
administrations of Presidents Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and
George H.W. Bush.CALIFORNIA SHOULD JUST SAY NO
Legalizing Marijuana Through Prop. 19 Would Only Add to the State’s
Problems.Californians will face an important decision in November when they
vote on whether to legalize marijuana. Proponents of Proposition 19,
the Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010, rely on two main
arguments: that legalizing and taxing marijuana would generate
much-needed revenue, and that legalization would allow law enforcement
to focus on other crimes. As experts in the field of drug policy,
policing, prevention, education and treatment, we can report that
neither of these claims withstand scrutiny.No country in the world has legalized marijuana to the extent
envisioned by Proposition 19, so it is impossible to predict precisely
the consequences of wholesale legalization. We can say with near
certainty, however, that marijuana use would increase if it were
legal, because some people now abstain simply because it is illegal.We also know that increased use brings increased social
costs.Proponents of marijuana legalization often point to Amsterdam’s
“coffee shop” marijuana sales, rarely mentioning that the Dutch have
dramatically reduced what at one time were thousands of shops to only
a few hundred — after being inundated with “drug tourists,”
drug-related organized crime involvement and public nuisance problems.
During the period of marijuana commercialization and expansion, there
was a tripling of lifetime use rates and a more than doubling of
past-month use among 18- to 20-year-olds, according to independent
research.Closer to home, in a nationally representative roadside survey, the
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration found that 8% of
nighttime weekend drivers tested positive for marijuana. The vast
majority were tested using an oral swab procedure that makes it highly
unlikely that the use occurred more than four hours prior.A 2004 meta-analysis published in the journal Drug and Alcohol Review
of studies conducted in several localities showed that between 4% and
14% of drivers who sustained injuries or died in traffic accidents
tested positive for delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, the active
ingredient in marijuana. Because marijuana negatively affects drivers’
judgment, motor skills and reaction time, it stands to reason that
legalizing marijuana would lead to more accidents and fatalities
involving drivers under its influence.Regarding the supposed economic benefits of taxing marijuana, some
comparison with two drugs that are already regulated and taxed –
alcohol and tobacco — is worth considering. People don’t typically
grow their own tobacco or distill their own spirits, so consumers
accept high taxes on them as retail products. Marijuana, though, is
easy and cheap to cultivate, indoors or out, and Proposition 19 would
allow individuals to grow as much as 25 square feet of marijuana for
“personal consumption.”Why would people volunteer to pay high taxes on marijuana if it were
legalized? The answer is that many would not, and the underground
market, adapting to undercut any new taxes, would barely diminish at
all.The current healthcare and criminal justice costs associated with
alcohol and tobacco far surpass the tax revenue they generate, and
very little of the taxes collected on these substances is contributed
to offsetting their substantial social and health costs. For every
dollar society collects in taxes on alcohol, for example, we end up
spending eight more in social costs. That is hardly a recipe for
fiscal health.A recent Rand Corp. report, “Altered State,” found that it is
difficult to predict estimated revenue from marijuana taxes, and that
legalization would increase consumption but could also lead to
widespread tax evasion and a “race to the bottom” in terms of local
tax rates.Another pro-legalization argument is that it would free up law
enforcement resources to concentrate on “real” crimes. Two of us are
former police chiefs, who in our combined careers protected five of
America’s largest cities, including New York, Houston and Seattle, and
served as elected heads of the nation’s largest professional police
associations. We interacted with tens of thousands of officers, and it
is our experience that an overwhelming majority of police
professionals does not support legalizing marijuana.Law enforcement officers do not currently focus much effort on
arresting adults whose only crime is possessing small amounts of
marijuana. This proposition would burden them with new and complicated
enforcement duties. The proposition would require officers to enforce
laws against “ingesting or smoking marijuana while minors are
present.” Would this apply in a private home? And is a minor “present”
if they are 15 feet away, or 20? Perhaps California law enforcement
officers will be required to carry tape measures next to their handcuffs.As should be evident, despite the millions spent on marketing the
idea, legalized marijuana can’t solve California’s budget crisis or
reduce criminal justice costs. Our combined opposition to this
ill-considered scheme spans four different administrations and
represents the collective wisdom of a former secretary of Education, a
governor, a mayor and teacher, an Army general, a drug policy
researcher and two police chiefs. Our opposition to legalizing
marijuana is grounded not in ideology but in facts and experience.**********************************************************************
Suggestions for writing letters are at our Media Activism Center
http://www.mapinc.org/resource/#guides
For the latest facts about marijuana please see http://www.drugwarfacts.org/cms/node/53
**********************************************************************
Prepared by: Richard Lake, Focus Alert Specialist
http://www.mapinc.org=.
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#448 California’s Proposition 19
Date: Sun, 22 Aug 2010
Subject: #448 California’s Proposition 19CALIFORNIA’S PROPOSITION 19
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DrugSense FOCUS Alert #448 – Sunday, August 22nd, 2010
Today the San Francisco Chronicle printed two OPEDs.
The first ‘Californians Must Look at Science of Marijuana’
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v10/n677/a08.html is interesting for
what is not disclosed. It is by an addiction therapist. The
therapeutic community has a vested interest in continuing the current
system. About half of all users in therapy are there because of their
marijuana use. Of those, over 40% are there from court referrals –
they take therapy as a preferred alternative to jail whether they need
it or not. Many of the others are there because their parents’ health
insurance will buy therapy as an alternative to being expelled from
school or referred to the juvenile justice system.The second ‘Legalizing Marijuana Is Bad For California’
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v10.n679.a06.html is by Susan
Manheimer, the president of the California Police Chiefs Association.
There is more spin and propaganda in the OPED than we can count.Your letters to the editor about either or both are invited.
Opinion items are always good letter targets. They are MAP archived
at http://www.mapinc.org/opinion.htmThe same applies to Proposition 19 items which may be found at
http://www.mapinc.org/topic/Proposition+19
Please check out the new Proposition 19 website at http://yeson19.com/
- and please do whatever you can to support the effort.We have started a list of who appears to be for and against
Proposition 19 based on MAP’s news clippings.**********************************************************************
FOR
The International Longshore and Warehouse Union
The National Black Police Association
The United Food and Commercial Workers Union
The California National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
Law Enforcement Against Prohibition
The Drug Policy Alliance Network
Students for Sensible Drug Policy
The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws
The American Civil Liberties Union
The Courage Campaign
Dr. Joycelyn Elders, the former United States Surgeon General
The Cannabis Consumers Campaign
DRCNet
DrugSense
Common Sense for Drug Policy
Marijuana Policy Project
Citizens Opposing Prohibition
The California Black Chamber of Commerce
Retired Orange County Judge James Gray
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AGAINST
The California Chamber of Commerce
The California Police Chiefs Association
The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy
Mexican Marijuana Trafficking Organizations
The California Narcotics Officer’s Association
Gubernatorial candidates Meg Whitman and Jerry Brown
Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer
The California League of Cities
**********************************************************************
Suggestions for writing letters are at our Media Activism Center
http://www.mapinc.org/resource/#guides
For the latest facts about marijuana please see
http://www.drugwarfacts.org/cms/node/53
**********************************************************************
Prepared by: Richard Lake, Focus Alert Specialist http://www.mapinc.org
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#447 Who’s The Dope?
Date: Thu, 19 Aug 2010
Subject: #447 Who’s The Dope?WHO’S THE DOPE?
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DrugSense FOCUS Alert #447 – Thursday, August 19th, 2010
The cities of Denver and Seattle as well as a number of smaller cities
have made use or possession of small amounts of marijuana their lowest
law enforcement priority.This November the second largest city in the heartland may make a
similar decision as the result of the efforts of the Coalition for a
Safer Detroit http://www.saferdetroit.net/Detroit’s alternative newspaper discusses the current status of that
effort below.The statement “And that federal law trumps any state law.” is not
accurate. States are not required to have or enforce laws which match
federal law. If it were otherwise Michigan would not be a medicinal
marijuana state.Since May of 1975 it has been legal for the citizens of Alaska to have
small amounts of marijuana in their own home. The feds have not and
can not do anything about it. See http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/legal/l1970/ravin.htmThe court hearing on the Detroit ballot initiative is scheduled for
August 26 at 2:30 p.m. in the Court Room of Judge Michael Sapala in
the Coleman Young Municipal Center, 2 Woodward Ave, Detroit 48226.Please bookmark this link which will display Michigan’s marijuana
press articles as they are archived by MAP http://www.mapinc.org/find?275**********************************************************************
Pubdate: Wed, 19 Aug 2010
Source: Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Copyright: 2010 Metro Times, Inc
Contact: letters@metrotimes.com
Note: By News Hits staff. News Hits is edited by Curt Guyette.
Who’s The Dope?
DETROIT ELECTION COMMISSION SPIKES VOTE ON RECREATIONAL POT REFERENDUM
Attention Detroit voters: You must be idiots.
Granted, that may be a harsh analysis. But, in the light of recent
events, it is a conclusion News Hits has been forced to arrive at.First, the Detroit City Council decides not to place a measure on the
ballot that would let the city’s voters decide whether to place
control of their public schools in the hands of the mayor.Not that we think having Mayor Bingo directing education is a
particularly good idea. He has his hands full as it is. But what we
think really isn’t all that important. What should matter is what a
majority of the city’s residents want.It’s a concept known in some circles as democracy. We hear it worked
for the Greeks back in the day.But no, the people elected by the people of this city apparently have
a fairly dim view of the judgment possessed by those who put them in
office (no small amount of irony in that, eh?) and want to keep them
from making important decisions.Such as whether the mayor should control the public school system. Or,
more recently, whether consenting adults should be able to enjoy a
little marijuana in the privacy of their own homes.In the case of the latter, though, it wasn’t the City Council, but
rather the three-member Detroit Election Commission that decided you
the people couldn’t be trusted to make the sort of informed decision
Californians will be making come November.You might not have heard, but, earlier this year, a group called the
Coalition for a Safer Detroit collected more than 6,000 signatures
from voters who supported placing a measure on the ballot that would
allow people 21 and older to possess no more than an ounce of pot,
which they could enjoy as long as they didn’t use it in public. Those
signatures were submitted to City Clerk Janice Winfrey, who determined
that more than enough of them were valid, qualifying the measure to
appear on the ballot.The final step required the approval of the Election Commission, a
relatively obscure group that includes the very high profile Charles
Pugh, president of the City Council, as one of its members.Last week, the commission voted unanimously to keep the measure off
the ballot. The reason for doing so, they said, was because the
initiative, if passed, would conflict with state law. No less than the
City of Detroit Law Department arrived at that conclusion, and
conveyed its opinion to the commission.News Hits, as you might have guessed, never even came close to getting
into law school, including some of the shadier ones operating in the
Caribbean. But we did watch a lot of Perry Mason in our youth, and,
based on that rock-solid foundation, we feel more than qualified to at
least ask what we believe to be this very pertinent question:What the hell are these people smoking?
The commission’s reasoning, if you can call it that, appears to the
laymen here at the Hits to be patently ridiculous. If you are looking
for precedent (which, as we learned at the Perry Mason School of Law,
is a bona fide legal term) you need search no further than the medical
marijuana ballot measure overwhelmingly approved by the state’s voters
in 2008.According to federal law, any use of the evil cannabis is strictly
prohibited and eminently punishable. And that federal law trumps any
state law. Even so, voters in this state, as well as 13 others, were
able to tell local and state authorities to keep their handcuffs off
people who received the requisite doctor’s authorization to use nurse
Mary Jane whenever the need arose.Of course, the feds could still bust you. (Although, in a fit of
sanity, the Obama administration ordered the DEA to lay off locking up
people in states where medical marijuana has been legalized.)So, if the state can say it is going to pass a measure that
contradicts federal law, why is it the city can’t do the same thing
and say marijuana is legal even though the state still prohibits it?The answer, according to attorney Matt Abel (who, as far as we know,
did actually graduate from a law school and didn’t have to go to the
Caribbean to do it), is that there’s no good reason.Sure, state cops could still bust dope smokers if they wanted to.
Hell, even Detroit cops could under the authority of state law.“The practical effect,” explains Abel, one of the area’s premier
attorneys when it comes to weedy issues, “is that it would be an
advisory measure.”In other words, a way for the people of Detroit to tell the city’s
cops to spend their time pursuing murderers, rapists and home invaders
instead of joint rollers.Abel and his partner in attempted legalization, Tim Beck, both tell
News Hits that they were pretty astonished by the Detroit Election
Commission’s decision.Even more surprising, they say, is the vehemence with which Council
president Pugh vilified the proposed initiative.“He went ballistic,” is the way Abel describes Pugh’s reaction. Beck
says Pugh justified his opposition by claiming the measure would be a
“bad law.”Maybe we missed that part of his resume, but, to the best of our
knowledge, Pugh, like the crew here at News Hits, never quite made it
to law school. We did try to get his side of the story, but a phone
call and e-mail seeking comment were not returned.In the end though, his opinion isn’t going to matter any more than
ours. Immediately after the commission issued its opinion, Abel and
Beck began drafting a legal challenge. As a result, the city must now
go to court and attempt to justify the commission’s actions.It would have been easier – and much less costly – to simply put the
question in front of voters and let them decide in the first place.Perhaps we’re mistaken, and the judge will decide that the commission
acted properly in voting to keep this initiative off the ballot. But
we’re willing to bet an ounce of primo purple kush that, when the
gavel drops, you the people are going to get to decide for yourselves
whether Detroiters should be able to light up without fear of getting
busted by the local cops.And that’s as it should be.
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Taking the Initiative – A Reformer’s Guide to Direct Democracy by Tim
Beck is an excellent guide http://www.drugsense.org/caip#takeFor the latest facts about marijuana please see http://www.drugwarfacts.org/cms/node/53
Suggestions for writing letters are at our Media Activism Center
http://www.mapinc.org/resource/#guides
**********************************************************************
Prepared by: Richard Lake, Focus Alert Specialist
http://www.mapinc.org=.
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admin
#446 Michigan Medical Marijuana In The News
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2010
Subject: #446 Michigan Medical Marijuana In The NewsMICHIGAN MEDICAL MARIJUANA IN THE NEWS
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DrugSense FOCUS Alert #446 – Wednesday, August 11th, 2010
Almost every day we read articles in the press which show the efforts
going on in Michigan to oppose the will of the voters.The editorial below states that “Municipalities throughout the state
have been struggling with just how to regulate the distribution of the
drug to those who can legally use it.”The state’s law is clear as you may read at http://drugsense.org/url/8mvr7sW8
It was passed by two-thirds of the voters. Even the state
legislature can not change the law without a three-fourths vote in
each house.But by a simple majority vote some municipalities are attempting to
take away rights of Michigan’s legal caregivers and patients. This
effort is being spearheaded by the Michigan Municipal League
http://mapinc.org/url/1P1nVl8N and some members of the law enforcement
community.Taking the lead in opposition to these efforts is the American Civil
Liberties Union of Michigan. Please read their latest press release
at http://www.aclumich.org/issues/drug-policy/2010-07/1460Your letters to the editor in support of the will of the people are
important.Please bookmark this link which will display Michigan’s marijuana
press articles as they are archived by MAP http://www.mapinc.org/find?275**********************************************************************
Pubdate: Wed, 11 Aug 2010
Source: Daily Tribune, The (Royal Oak, MI)
Webpage: http://mapinc.org/url/px6eGJuE
Copyright: 2010 The Daily Tribune
Contact: editor@dailytribune.com
Website: http://www.dailytribune.com/
SILVERDOME POT FEST SHOULD BE CANCELED
Much to the chagrin of city officials, plans have been set for a
cannabis convention in the Silverdome for Oct. 29-31.Bruce Perlowin, the CEO of Medical Marijuana Inc., is behind the event
and bristles at referring to it as a “pot party.” He calls it the
International Holistic Health Cannabis Convention Halloween Harmony &
Harvest Festival, and says it’s a trade show.No matter how it is termed, city officials are justified in being
concerned. Medical marijuana may be legal in Michigan but the
controversial drug shouldn’t and isn’t something that can be purchased
over the counter at your local pharmacy.Municipalities throughout the state have been struggling with just how
to regulate the distribution of the drug to those who can legally use
it. Many communities have placed moratoriums on ordinances addressing
the distribution to make sure the process is appropriately covered and
that the drug doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.In fact, local officials would be shirking their duties if they did
not scrutinize the law and establish sound regulatory laws.Voters approved the proposition with their hearts, but local community
leaders need to control it with their heads.Medical marijuana is not the panacea that its supporters say it is,
and there are numerous peripheral or collateral problems associated
with its legal distribution and use. Most doctors are reluctant to say
it won’t help a suffering patient but likewise, only a few are strong
proponents.Also, making sure the drug doesn’t find its way into the hands of
those not authorized to use it will cost communities money because of
the law enforcement requirements.Medical Marijuana Inc. advertises itself as providing tools to manage
a medical marijuana business in full compliance of laws and
regulations regarding cannabis.This is one very good reason why the Silverdome festival should not be
conducted. Too many communities are still not certain about how to
regulate marijuana, which is the reason for the moratoriums.
Consequently, if all of the laws are not in place, how can festival
organizers provide accurate guidance on complying with the
regulations?In addition, Pontiac Police Chief Val Gross has expressed concern
about public safety and illegal drug use in connection with the
festival. We’re not going to second-guess Perlowin as to why he wants
to conduct the dome festival. It certainly seems premature at the very
least, considering how new the law is.Some people will undoubtedly make thousands, if not hundreds of
thousands of dollars, thanks to the new law. It’s not unreasonable to
give local communities time to institute regulations that will make
sure all of the transactions are legal.Complicating the situation is the fact marijuana use may be allowable
for some people under state law, but it’s still illegal on the federal
level.Medical Marijuana Inc. is a California-based company. That state was
one of the first in the nation to legalize medical marijuana and since
then, it still is struggling with regulations over how the drug should
be distributed.While Michigan would like to become the new “Hollywood” through
increased filmmaking here, we don’t need to bring in the California
drug culture.So caution is obviously called for and common sense says that the
festival should be canceled.**********************************************************************
Suggestions for writing letters are at our Media Activism Center
http://www.mapinc.org/resource/#guides
For facts about medicinal marijuana please see http://www.drugwarfacts.org/cms/node/54
A new medicinal cannabis flyer is available at http://mapinc.org/url/Rr2BR72F
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Prepared by: Richard Lake, Focus Alert Specialist
http://www.mapinc.org=.
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admin
#445 Please Support California’s Proposition 19
Date: Sun, 8 Aug 2010
Subject: #445 Please Support California’s Proposition 19PLEASE SUPPORT CALIFORNIA’S PROPOSITION 19
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DrugSense FOCUS Alert #445 – Sunday, August 8th, 2010
Today the California state capitol’s daily newspaper featured
marijuana articles.To respond with letters go to http://www.sacbee.com/2006/09/07/19629/submit-letters-to-the-editor.html
Ways you may support Proposition 19 are found at http://www.taxcannabis.org/
It’s not what others do – it’s what YOU do.
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Source: Sacramento Bee (CA)
Page: 5E
Webpage: http://mapinc.org/url/JGQmEm4Y
Copyright: 2010 The Sacramento Bee
Author: Dale Gieringer, Special to The Bee
Note: Dale Gieringer is the California director of the marijuana
legalization group NORML, the National Organization for Reformof
Marijuana Laws.RISK OF STONED DRIVERS MINIMAL WITH PROP. 19
Critics of this November’s Proposition 19 initiative to legalize
marijuana are raising concerns that it could lead to an epidemic of
road accidents by pot-impaired drivers.Because accidents, unlike other purported hazards of marijuana, pose a
risk to non-users, such concerns deserve to be addressed seriously.Fortunately, there exists extensive evidence showing that marijuana,
unlike alcohol, does not pose a major highway safety hazard, and that
liberal marijuana laws have no adverse impact on highway safety.Studies on marijuana and driving safety are remarkably consistent,
though greatly under-publicized because they fail to support the
government’s anti-pot line. Eleven different studies of more than
50,000 fatal accidents have found that drivers with marijuana-only in
their system are on average no more likely to cause accidents than
those with low, legal levels of alcohol below the threshold for DUI.The major exception is when marijuana is combined with alcohol, which
tends to be highly dangerous.Several studies have failed to detect any increased accident risk from
marijuana at all. The reason for pot’s relative safety appears to be
that it tends to make users drive more slowly, while alcohol makes
them speed up.Thus legalization could actually reduce accidents if more drivers used
marijuana instead of alcohol, but it could also increase them if there
were more combined use of the two.So what will happen if California approves Proposition 19? Contrary to
the claims of some opponents, Proposition 19 does not change current
laws against driving under the influence. Nor would it bar testing of
bus drivers or other safety-critical workers, as some have alleged; in
fact, it explicitly protects the right of employers to address
consumption that impairs job performance. Nor would it override
federal drug-free work-force rules any more than did Proposition 215.Nor would legalization necessarily dramatically increase the number of
pot smokers. Studies have consistently failed to find any relationship
between marijuana laws and usage rates. In the Netherlands, where
marijuana is publicly available in coffee shops, usage is only half
that in the United States. The Netherlands also boasts one of Europe’s
lowest road fatality rates, well below its neighbors.Similarly, California, despite having the freest medical marijuana
regime in the nation, ranks 18th among states in marijuana use and
boasts a highway fatality rate well below the national average.Proposition 19 critics cite a recent report by retired researcher Al
Crancer warning that the percentage of fatal drivers with marijuana in
their blood has increased in California since 2004. (This doesn’t mean
that marijuana necessarily caused the accidents, just that the drivers
had used it in the past hours or days). Crancer spuriously blames this
on the legalization of medical marijuana, but that happened in 1996,
not 2004. Moreover, his data suggest similar trends in other states.In fact, California ranks 14th in the nation in the rate of marijuana
involvement in accidents, well behind states with tougher marijuana
laws such as South Carolina, Indiana and Missouri. Crancer’s data also
show that two of the state’s most pot-friendly counties, San Francisco
and Santa Cruz, had zero pot-related road fatalities in 2008. All of
this shows that liberal access to pot doesn’t necessarily mean more
DUIs.Still, it seems reasonable to assume that legalization would increase
the number of pot users. A Rand Corp. report on legalization envisions
a possible doubling in usage in California bringing us back to the
same level as in the late 1970s, when marijuana use peaked.You don’t remember an epidemic of highway accidents back when pot was
so popular? That’s because it didn’t happen. U.S. accident rates
declined steadily throughout the 1960s and ’70s, even while tens of
millions of Americans were introduced to marijuana. Happily, accident
rates have declined steadily since records were kept, thanks to
improved technology, safer roads, better enforcement and public education.Californians have little reason to fear an epidemic of auto accidents
if Proposition 19 passes. New users would include many law-abiding
persons who were previously deterred by its illegality and who would
be more apt to respect DUI laws than today’s scofflaw users. Other
problems could be controlled by common-sense enforcement and
regulations, such as discouraging combined sales of liquor and pot.Long ago, the architect of marijuana prohibition, Federal Bureau of
Narcotics Commissioner Harry Anslinger, warned that legalizing
marijuana would mean “slaughter on the highways.” Anslinger also
warned that pot turned users into homicidal assassins, maniacs and
addicts. Then as now, the public would be wise to disregard such
reefer madness.**********************************************************************
Source: Sacramento Bee (CA)
Page: A1, Front Page
Webpage: http://mapinc.org/url/BtMchV4z
Copyright: 2010 The Sacramento Bee
Author: Peter Hecht, Sacramento Bee
WEED GOES MAINSTREAM
John Wade, 43, a San Francisco commercial lighting specialist, takes a
quick hit from a marijuana cigarette on the golf course to steady
himself before putting.Sarika Simmons, 35, of San Diego County, sometimes unwinds after the
kids are asleep with tokes from a fruit-flavored cigar filled with
pot.And retiree Robert Girvetz, 78, of San Juan Capistrano, recently
started anew – replacing his occasional martini with marijuana.“It’s a little different than I remember,” he says. “A couple of hits
- and wooooo….”As California voters prepare to decide in November whether to become
the first state to legalize marijuana for recreational use, a new
Field Poll conducted for The Sacramento Bee reveals that weed already
is deeply woven into society.Those who use the drug, and their reasons for doing it, may be as
diverse as the state itself.Forty-two percent of adults who described themselves as current users
in the July poll said they smoke pot to relieve pain or treat a health
condition. Thirty-nine percent use it recreationally, to socialize or
have fun with friends.Sixty percent say marijuana helps them relax or sleep. Twenty-four
percent say it stimulates their creativity.Historically, marijuana use in California remains lower than during
peak years of the late 1970s. But voters’ approval of Proposition 215,
the Compassionate Use Act – which made the state the first to legalize
medical marijuana – is changing the social dynamic, according to poll
results and interviews with users in 15 counties.“It’s certainly likely that post-Proposition 215, it has become more
mainstream and the base of users has broadened,” said Craig Reinarman,
a UC Santa Cruz sociology professor who has studied marijuana in society.Other measures back the Field Poll findings:
. More than 400,000 Californians use marijuana daily, according to
the state Board of Equalization. And state residents consume 16
million ounces of weed a year, from legal and illegal sources.. More than 3.4 million Californians smoked pot in 2008, according to
the latest research by the National Survey on Drug Abuse and Health.And, in the Field Poll, 47 percent of registered voters said they have
used marijuana at least once in their life. That exceeds the
registration of any political party in the state.Breaking Stereotypes
Marijuana use in California extends well beyond any stoner
stereotype.“I don’t walk around in Bob Marley T-shirts or have a marijuana flag
in my room,” said Kyle Printz, 44, a Marin County software engineer.Printz occasionally smokes pot after writing computer code – “and
dealing with zeros and ones all day long.” He said, “It alters your
state of mind a bit and does help you relax.”Deborah Pottle, 56, a disabled former state corrections officer from
Modesto, has a physician’s recommendation for marijuana for her back
injuries and a precancerous condition. She prefers cannabis in
lozenges and brownies and melds pot flakes into spaghetti sauce and
high-protein meals.“I find it better by a long shot than … trying to keep pills down,”
said Pottle, who sees marijuana only as a medical remedy – not recreation.Nationally, more than 100 million Americans have tried marijuana, and
10 states – led by Rhode Island, Vermont and Alaska – have higher per
capita use than the Golden State.But in California, a proliferating industry of medical cannabis
dispensaries, offering exotic strains such as “Blue Dream,” “Train
Wreck” or “Green Crack,” helps supply a vast market, including many
people who never venture inside a pot shop.According to the state Board of Equalization, California marijuana
dispensaries – intended to serve bona fide medical users, including
AIDS, cancer and chronic pain sufferers – produce up to $1.3 billion
in marijuana transactions for people reporting a vast range of ills.“I’m sure there are people who suffer from any number of maladies that
seek therapy from marijuana use,” said Sacramento County Sheriff John
McGinness. “But for at least as many, I think it’s a ruse for healthy
people who enjoy the effects of marijuana.“That’s how they obtain it without hassle.”
Illegal Trafficking Persists
Ngaio Bealum, editor of West Coast Cannabis, a 50,000-circulation
lifestyle publication that bills itself as the Sunset magazine of
weed, says the dispensary evolution and sophisticated growing
techniques are changing California’s pot culture.But he said illegal marijuana trafficking lives on to satisfy the
demand.“The old-school weed man still exists, but he’s had to step his game
up,” Bealum said. “Now when you go to the clubs (dispensaries), you’ve
got 50 different kinds” of pot strains. “The weed man now has to offer
a few different kinds – and start making brownies, too.”California decriminalized marijuana use and possession 34 years ago.
People caught with less than an ounce face a misdemeanor that carries
a $100 fine. Those with medical recommendations now can legally
possess up to 8 ounces.Bealum says readily available weed – and the reduced stigma and
penalties – make people less wary of consequences.“As the boomers get older, those guys realized it is really no big
deal,” he said. “And the younger kids don’t think it’s a big deal,
because their parents used to do it.”The July Field Poll shows plummeting support for tougher marijuana
laws and increased backing for softer penalties. Yet marijuana arrests
continue to rise.In 2008, California authorities cited 61,388 people on misdemeanor pot
offenses and 17,126 for felonies such as illegal trafficking,
cultivation or possession for sale. Total arrests were up by nearly
one-third since 2003.According to the Bee-commissioned poll, current marijuana use is most
prevalent in the Bay Area and Northern California, including North
Coast and Sierra Nevada counties with pot-receptive climates and
cultures. Use is lower in the Central Valley and lowest in San
Diego/Orange counties.And, following previous trends, reported pot use is higher among
whites than African Americans, Latinos and other ethnic groups.All Ages and Lifestyles
Marijuana has found niches in the California lifestyle with young
people starting their careers, affluent baby boomers and urban
professionals.Ryan Issaco, a 21-year-old San Jose college senior bound for law
school, says he gets marijuana from friends with medical cards or from
acquaintances who bring weed from North Coast pot-growing regions to
the Silicon Valley.He lights a water pipe and explores “different avenues on the issues”
with companions. “I love to talk politics when I’m a little high,”
Issaco said.Californians age 40 to 49 – people who grew up a decade or more
removed from the hippie era and the Summer of Love – are most likely
to have used marijuana at some point in their lives, the poll showed.Though current use is highest among people between 18 and 29 and
earning less than $40,000 a year, pot also is finding a significant
foothold among many reaching their prime career earning years.Steven Keegan, 40, a Los Angeles sporting goods designer, earns more
than $100,000 marketing to Fortune 500 companies. He says he smokes
pot before a typical weekend day spent with his girlfriend at L.A.’s
Zuma Beach.At bedtime, he relaxes with “Woody Harrelson” – a popular cannabis
strain named for the actor, an outspoken booster of marijuana use.“I can come home from work and if I’m up at night thinking about
various projects, I’ll just take a hit and … I can go to sleep,”
Keegan said.John Wade, who does lighting and production for weddings and corporate
events, uses his “one hitter” – a miniature pipe that looks like a
cigarette – to sneak smokes at Giants baseball games, on ski lifts -
and on the golf course.“You don’t want to smoke too much because it can make the game worse,”
he said. “But I’ve taken a hit and gone off and had a couple of good
holes. I seem to be able to focus on my putting better.”According to the Field Poll, the overwhelming majority of current pot
smokers prefer to use it at home or a friend’s house. Smaller numbers
say they enjoy it at parties, concerts or outdoors.Simmons, of San Marcos, sometimes retreats to a patio to relieve
stress once her three daughters are asleep and won’t notice.“I don’t even like the smell of it on my hands or body,” she said.
“I’m very discreet about it.”Some Share ‘Medical Pot’
Dawn Sanford, a call center data entry worker from Sacramento, said
she rarely buys marijuana herself. But she reaches out to friends with
a ready supply or a medical recommendation.Sanford has never seen a physician for a pot referral but suffers
occasional panic attacks. Sometimes, she said, she calls a female
friend who uses marijuana for anxiety to ask, “Can we do this please?”The potential for pot purchased at medical dispensaries to be diverted
for recreational use is prompting efforts to prevent patients from
reselling or giving away pot.Purchasers are limited to 2 ounces a week at Harborside Health Center,
which serves 48,000 medical users through its Oakland and San Jose
dispensaries. The Oakland outlet alone handles $20 million a year in
marijuana transactions, according to the center.Harborside bans cell phones or money exchanges on dispensary premises.
It looks for people whose approach – such as buying up particular pot
strains or purchasing in multiple quantities – suggest they may be
planning to resell it.“We’ve trained our staff to identify transactions that may be
suspicious,” said Harborside Director Steve DeAngelo. “When you have
dual markets, one legal and one illegal, existing side-by-side, you’re
going to have the issue of diversion.”Many marijuana users have friends who bring home dispensary pot as
easily as picking up the groceries.So in Riverside County, Annette Drennan, 30, an amateur astrologer who
is taking a class on meditation, enjoys smoking with her boyfriend – a
pot patient – because “when I get stoned I can really feel the present.”Sociologist Reinarman said, “The line that separates recreational use
from medical use is blurred” by the infusion of medical pot into
California’s popular culture.“There is no contradiction from people who sometimes use it for pain
or sometimes use it for sleep or sometimes use it because it is fun
and or stimulates their creativity,” he said.The notion offends Lanette Davies, who runs Sacramento’s Canna Care
dispensary, which serves 5,000 registered marijuana patients.Davies believes many illicit marijuana users may be self-medicating
for undiagnosed medical conditions. But she said, “I don’t support
people using strictly for recreation. If you want to take Vicodin
simply because it feels good, that doesn’t make it OK.”While many dispensaries pitch exotic pot strains, such as “Grandaddy
Grape Ape” and “Brainstorm Haze,” as if they were prize-winning
vintages of wine, Canna Care rejected the common name of one popular
variety. It changed “Green Crack” to “Green Lady” to avoid an appeal
to recreational users.“We will not put up ‘crack,’” Davies said.
Marketing Approaches Vary
Pot marketing is booming with the burgeoning medical marijuana
industry.MediCann, a California physicians network that has overseen referrals
for more than 200,000 patients, portrays medicinal marijuana use as a
mainstream experience.Its “typical stoner” ad campaign features photos of real estate
agents, marketing executives, veterans, community volunteers,
professors and plumbers who find relief for anxiety, arthritis,
nausea, sleeplessness or back pain.By contrast, an advertisement for Los Angeles’ Grateful Meds
dispensary appears to pitch mind-altering rewards.“The place where patients are high-spirited!” says an ad in a Los
Angeles pot culture magazine. With depictions of semi-nude women, the
advertisement offers free joints or pot brownies for each new “patient.”“This is what we’ve come to,” said John Redman, executive director of
Californians for Drug Free Youth. Such appeals attract young adults
and make a drug culture attractive to teens, he said. “How is it that
we as a society cannot look at that?”Redman contends depictions of pot as a cool and natural alternative to
other drugs are akin to the Joe Camel ads that were blamed for drawing
kids to cigarettes.According to national drug survey data, one-third of current
California marijuana users are 18 to 25. Twelve percent – nearly
425,000 – are ages 12 to 17.Lure Surprises Some
The complexity and lure of the contemporary pot market surprises even
some veteran users such as Wade, who started smoking as a teenager.As a grown-up, he cited occasional hives and rashes to get a
physician’s recommendation. That entitled him to shop dispensaries
featuring scores of marijuana varieties. They include cannabis sativa
plants – said to produce a cerebral high; indica plants – considered
body relaxants; and crossbred plants said to offer both medicinal effects.Some strains pack a greater psychoactive punch than Wade was ready
for. “I found them too strong,” he said.Wade has a favorite – “Blackberry Kush,” an indica strain he says has
“great flavor” and crystal-like texture that “looks like someone took
the buds and rolled them in sugar.”The new culture is luring back former pot smokers,
too.Robert Girvetz tried marijuana more than 40 years ago, indulged for a
few years and moved on with little nostalgia. But then, well into his
70s and “very much retired” from running a window-covering business,
he was reintroduced by friends and relatives.A cousin gave Girvetz a vaporizer that let him use pot without
lighting up. Preferring marijuana to cocktails, he savors it “once
every couple of months, just for kicks.”Girvetz did have one notable bad experience. “I ate a whole (pot)
brownie when I shouldn’t have,” he said. “I almost had to crawl out of
my chair to get into bed.”**********************************************************************
Suggestions for writing letters are at our Media Activism Center
http://www.mapinc.org/resource/#guides
For facts about marijuana please see http://www.drugwarfacts.org/cms/node/53
**********************************************************************
Prepared by: Richard Lake, Focus Alert Specialist
http://www.mapinc.org=.
-
admin
#444 Will California Legalize Marijuana?
Date: Fri, 30 Jul 2010
Subject: #444 Will California Legalize Marijuana?WILL CALIFORNIA LEGALIZE MARIJUANA?
**********************************************************************
DrugSense FOCUS Alert #444 – Friday, July 30th, 2010
The AlterNet article below provides a good overview of the current
status of Proposition 19.Writing Letters to the Editor will be a part of the educational mix
needed to help the proposition pass.The more good, short, thoughtful letters written the more the
newspapers will consider the issue of importance to their readers -
even if your letter is not printed.The Media Awareness Project Source Directory for Letters to the Editor
contacts is at http://www.mapinc.org/media.htm**********************************************************************
Pubdate: Fri, 30 Jul 2010
Source: AlterNet (US Web)
Copyright: 2010 Independent Media Institute
Website: http://www.alternet.org/
Author: Daniela Perdomo, AlterNet
Note: Daniela Perdomo is a staff writer and editor at AlterNet
Cited: Proposition 19 http://www.taxcannabis.org/
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/Proposition+19
WILL CALIFORNIA LEGALIZE POT?
With Only a Few Months to Go Until the Election, the Campaign to
Legalize Marijuana in California Has Only $50,000 in Cash on Hand.
The Question Now Is: How Can It Win?Today, at least a third of Americans say they’ve tried smoking weed.
Is it possible that after half a century of increasingly mainstreamed
pot use the public is ready for marijuana to be legal? We may soon
find out.California has long been on the front lines of marijuana policy. In
1996, it became the first state to legalize medical cannabis. This
year, the Tax Cannabis initiative — now officially baptized
Proposition 19 — may very well be the best chance any state has ever
had at legalizing the consumption, possession and cultivation of
marijuana for anyone over 21.Drug reformers are particularly excited about Prop. 19′s prospects
because the pot reform stars seem to be as aligned as ever here.
Consider the current state of marijuana in California. For one,
medical cannabis has normalized the idea of pot as a legitimate
industry to many of the state’s residents. At least 300,000 and as
many as 400,000 Californians are card-carrying medical marijuana
patients, and the medical pot industry brings in around $100 million
in sales tax revenue each year, according to Americans for Safe Access.Add to this the fact that at least 3.3 million Californians consume
cannabis each year, a figure culled from a presumably low-ball federal
estimate, meaning the actual incidence rate may be much higher. In
other words, at least one in 10 Californians uses pot every year.
Plus, 38 percent of Californians say they have tried pot at least once
in their lifetimes.Next, tie the widespread use of this mild substance — which has
proven to be less harmful than alcohol and cigarettes — to the
growing slice of law enforcement resources that are dedicated to
fighting non-violent crimes associated with marijuana. Since 2005,
marijuana arrests have increased nearly 30 percent, totaling 78,000 in
2008, according to figures from the state’s Office of the Attorney
General. Of those arrests, four out of five were for simple
possession. Not surprisingly, this overzealous drug war
disproportionately affects minorities and young people.All of this in the face of the state’s massive debt — $19 billion for
the month-old fiscal year — which is closing schools, laying off
police officers, and shutting down key public services while
cash-strapped taxpayers foot the bill for a failed, senseless drug
policy. With little money in state and local municipalities’ coffers,
criminalizing marijuana seems a senseless waste of the state’s largest
cash crop. In all, marijuana prohibition is both an economic and a
social issue — and Prop. 19 hopes to convince California voters that
Nov. 2 is the time to end it.The midterm elections are just over three months away, and Prop. 19 is
seen by many observers as one of the ballot items most likely to
galvanize voters. As the people behind Prop. 19 prepare to launch
their ground campaign in earnest, it’s clear the initiative will be
under a magnifying glass every step of the way.The question on everyone’s mind is: How do they win?
The reality of the matter is that Prop. 19 has the deck stacked
against it simply because there is no precedent for a voting public of
a state to endorse removing all civil and criminal penalties
associated with adult marijuana use. All preceding efforts have met
sad ends: A 1972 measure also called Prop. 19 failed in California;
more recently, attempts in Alaska, Colorado and Nevada were also
rejected. In the face of decades of federal and state prohibition, it
is still much easier to vote no than yes, even in the face of
convincing arguments to do otherwise.“There is no template available that shows what you need to do to
achieve victory,” says Paul Armentano, deputy director of the National
Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.Where Prop. 19 Stands Today
For the past few months since qualifying for the ballot, Prop. 19 has
focused on building up its online support, fund-raising, staffing the
Oakland office, building a coalition, and setting up a network of
volunteers throughout the state who will soon power the ground force.
Over this time, the mainstream media’s coverage of the campaign has
mostly focused on poll numbers.Polls in April and May found support at 56 percent and 51 percent,
respectively. A SurveyUSA poll released this month shows support at 50
percent, 10 points over those against it. A new Public Policy Polling
poll found the divide to be even greater, with 52 percent supporting
and 36 percent nixing it — and the campaign says these results are
more consistent with its internal polling. But another poll also
released this month, the Field poll, showed that more people oppose
the initiative than support it, at 48 to 44 percent. (This contrasts
with the last Field poll, conducted over a year ago, which found
support at 56 percent.) No matter which numbers you’re looking at
though, 50, 52 or even 56 percent isn’t all that comforting. It’s one
thing to say yes to a pollster, it’s quite another thing to get out
and vote that way.“Progressive drug reform on the California ballot needs to be polling
in the high 50s or low 60s,” says Stephen Gutwillig, the California
director at the Drug Policy Alliance. “This is because they generally
have nowhere to go but down because of the fear-mongering that usually
occurs at the hands of the law enforcement lobby which tends to not
need as much money to push their regressive fear-based messages.”Mauricio Garzon, the even-tempered campaign coordinator, admits polls
could be better but is sure that something even more important is
happening. “We’re seeing a legitimization of this issue, politically.
There was a time when this was impossible,” he says. “You reflect on
this and you see a shift in public sentiment and this is what this
campaign has always been about. Making Americans understand how
important this issue is. It’s a real issue and the existing framework
has been devastating to our society.”Indeed, Tax Cannabis has always been framed as a public education
campaign. In this sense, at least, Prop. 19 is really succeeding –
after all, a lot of people are talking about it.Prop. 19′s newly hired field director, James Rigdon, thinks marijuana
legalization has a lot more going for it than other issues. “There’s
something appealing about this for everyone — helping the economy,
incarceration issues, personal freedom ideas, public safety concerns.
People from all walks are willing to come out and support us,” Rigdon
tells me. “Our supporters aren’t just Cheech and Chong. They’re
everyday people who support this because it’s good for everybody.”The multi-layered appeal to ending marijuana prohibition even has some
expert election observers believing that ballot initiatives legalizing
cannabis may be the Democrats’ answer to the gay marriage bans that
drive Republican voters to the polling places. That theory remains to
be tested in November, but what is certain now is that the
far-reaching benefits that come with legalizing the marijuana industry
in California have attracted a broad coalition of supporters of all
stripes.In addition to all the major players in the drug reform community,
groups ranging from the NAACP to the ACLU have also signed up as
official endorsers of Prop. 19. So, too, have numerous labor unions,
faith leaders, law enforcement officers, elected officials, and
doctors and physicians. According to Gutwillig, a coalition of
organized labor, civil rights organizations, and the drug policy
reform movement “has not existed before and could be
game-changing.”As the coalition of Prop. 19 supporters grows, so does the mainstream
media’s coverage. Gutwillig believes Prop. 19 has done a “really good
job of defining the way the media is covering it; coming up with new
and interesting ways of talking about the issue. They are talking
about the failures of prohibition without seeming to encourage greater
consumption of marijuana. And the argument that is increasingly made
is that this is not playing out as criminal justice reform, that this
is playing out as a social or cultural or economic issue. The framing
is different.”Here Gutwillig is referring to the last statewide drug initiative –
Prop. 5 in 2008. That failed measure was framed as a criminal justice
issue and sought to emphasize treatment and rehabilitation for drug
offenders over harsh criminal consequences. So the Prop. 19 campaign’s
hope may be to learn from the lesson of Prop. 5 and skew away from
criminal justice arguments. But there could be a downside to this approach.“Prop. 19 is talking about this as more of a jobs, revenue issue,
which plays well for the mainstream media which likes to play up the
fiscal side of it because it ties into larger stories, but a more
sinister interpretation may be that it allows the media to talk about
marijuana reform without talking about marijuana reform,” Gutwillig
says.This is tied to another worry Gutwillig observes. “The research and
focus groups I’ve seen see the whole revenue thing as gravy — it
matters to people who’ve already made up their minds about supporting
Prop. 19. But it’s not the reason someone is going to come off the
fence. [Talking about revenue] doesn’t resonate with voters, nor
should it,” he says. “But what does resonate is the other side of the
fiscal coin, which is the opportunity to save and redirect scarce law
enforcement resources. That message makes a big difference. People’s
instincts tell them there is something fundamentally hypocritical
about marijuana prohibition.”Prop. 19 hopes to appeal to the instincts of Californians who believe
the drug war has failed.The Campaign’s Strategy
As Prop. 19 prepares to fan out across California, it has set two very
important, realistic goals. The first is that it will not try to
change the minds of those who believe marijuana prohibition has been a
success. This means that the campaign is out to mobilize those who
already support Prop. 19, and make sure they show up to vote; it also
means they will focus on convincing those who have some sense that
criminalizing pot has done more harm than good that this measure is
the right solution to this policy problem. The campaign expects the
swing demographics to be comprised mostly of blacks, Latinos, mothers,
and young people.In its second key strategic move, the campaign will especially focus
on the largest areas of voters most likely to vote in midterm
elections — Los Angeles County, Orange County, the Bay Area, the
Inland Empire, and the Central Valley — rather than spread itself too
thin across the entire state.As the campaign prepares to begin its on-the-ground outreach over
these next few weeks, the question of financing arises. After all, big
dollars are behind most successful campaigns.While Tax Cannabis premiered with a lot of fanfare about its financial
backing, the situation is somewhat different now. Richard Lee, the pot
entrepreneur and co-proponent of the initiative, injected $1.4 million
of his money — via Oaksterdam University — to ensure its passage.
While fund-raising has continued at a steady clip, the latest public
filings show that most of the larger cash infusions still come from
S.K. Seymour, LLC, Lee’s umbrella organization that runs Oaksterdam
and other cannabis-related businesses. Despite this, Prop. 19 is
committed to raising small amounts from many people, and the filings
show many small-dollar donations have started to flow in. According to
Lee, the campaign has raised $130,000 online and most of these
donations were under $250.Yet Lee admits that “everything is on track, except fund-raising.” The
campaign currently has $50,000 in cash. While the campaign has talked
to the major funders of other marijuana measures throughout the
country — people like Peter Louis, George Soros, Bob Wilson, and John
Sperling — none have committed funding yet. All of these men
contributed between $1 million and $2 million each to Prop. 5, the
failed 2008 measure that sought to reform sentencing for drug-related
offenses. A big question remains unanswered: Why are these Prop. 5
donors not funding Prop. 19?Their non-involvement may be why Garzon says the campaign “can
certainly do a lot with a little.” Prop. 19 has not yet planned for a
mass media campaign, which costs a lot of money. For example, a
statewide TV ad buy for a political candidate in California costs
about $1 million per week. That’s a daunting figure and so Tax
Cannabis will instead be stressing one-to-one public education, which
will take the form of door-to-door canvassing, phone banks and
town-hall meetings.“We don’t think we need [a mass media campaign] to win. It depends on
our budget — if we have room for it, we will,” Garzon says. “People
are interested enough that we find the person-to-person interaction to
be very successful. When you answer their questions, they’re very
supportive.”The Prop. 19 campaign will rely heavily on volunteers. Though the
campaign hasn’t yet put out an official appeal, 2,600 people have
already signed on. Many thousands more are expected to comprise the
complete army of volunteers, who will have to learn how to craft
talking points that appeal to different kinds of on-the-fence
Californians.Already the campaign has some idea of what those talking points will
be. A town-hall meeting in Mendocino County gave Garzon an opportunity
to see what resonated with voters there. The event was billed as “Life
After Legalization,” and speakers framed the passing of Prop. 19 as an
opportunity to become “the Napa Valley of cannabis,” Garzon said. By
the end of the meeting, a union man had inspired attendees to chant,
“Organize! Organize!”For Jerome Urias-Cantu, a law student at Stanford, the key issue is
border safety. In a fund-raising appeal sent out to Prop. 19′s mailing
list, he wrote about a cousin who lived in Ciudad Juarez, just miles
from the California border, who was killed in the escalating drug war
in Mexico. “Oscar had nothing to do with the drug trade, but he was
shot and killed nonetheless,” Urias-Cantu wrote. “That’s why I support
the reform of California’s cannabis laws. The measure will prevent
needless deaths by reducing the profitability of the drug trade and
putting the violent drug cartels out of business.” (The Office of
National Drug Control Policy estimates that Mexican cartels receive 60
percent of their revenue from marijuana sales in the United States.)Lance Rogers, a volunteer regional director based in San Diego,
believes that besides the border issues, people in his area will be
interested in economic arguments for Prop. 19. “San Diego — like the
state — is in a major fiscal crisis. We have an extreme budget
deficit due to pension problems,” he says.And as a criminal defense attorney, Rogers has met others like him who
“see the effects of an overly punitive criminal justice system on
marijuana offenses. I see people go to prison for five or seven years
for sales of less than an ounce of marijuana. Granted, these are folks
who have prior felonies or other things going on, but the fact is that
this person is going to prison for $75,000 a year for doing what Prop.
19 would legalize.”Priscilla A. Pyrk, the regional director for the Inland Empire and the
owner of a medical marijuana collective, thinks dispelling stereotypes
about cannabis consumers and entrepreneurs will be important, too.
“The cannabis industry needs to revamp how people perceive this
industry and its users,” Pyrk says. “That’s why it’s great that we
have a lot of non-traditional cannabis consumers coming on board.
They’re coming out of the closet! Doctors, lawyers, businessmen are
coming out and standing up for the initiative.”Women, who were key in the effort to legalize medical cannabis and
have more generally helped mainstream pot use, will also be targeted.
According to Richard Lee, soccer moms in particular are a big
undecided group. “We have to educate them about how Prop. 19 will
protect their kids better than the status quo,” he says. “The current
system draws kids into selling and buying cannabis. If alcohol was
illegal, it’d be the same way. There is a forbidden fruit
attraction.”Stephen Gutwillig agrees: “The campaign must validate moms’ instinct
that there is something whack about marijuana prohibition. The
instinct that marijuana is more like tobacco and alcohol than not, and
safer — which it is — and that there’s no reason that we shouldn’t
be trying to regulate marijuana. They know we’re wasting a lot of law
enforcement resources on this futile attempt to enforce these
unenforceable laws.”As Prop. 19 works on the ground, it will count on the field support of
three organizations. One is NORML, the National Organization for the
Reform of Marijuana Laws; the second is the Courage Campaign, a
progressive advocacy group with 800,000 members. Arisha Hatch, the
national field director at Courage, estimates that about 500 to 1,000
of its volunteers will be highly involved with the Prop. 19 campaign’s
get-out-the-vote work, which she sees as “the biggest challenge [Prop.
19] will face. We need to get people to actually speak on message and
in a responsible way about what taxing and regulating cannabis will be
like.“Marijuana legalization is the only thing on the ballot that can
replicate that turnout. I see it as an extremely important issue for
progressives, which is why Courage has made it the initiative we’re
supporting this cycle,” Hatch says.The final group supporting Prop. 19 on the ground is Students for
Sensible Drug Policy, which will manage the campus outreach and focus
on bringing out the youth vote.Aaron Houston, the executive director of SSDP, says he is committed to
proving the conventional wisdom about youth voters and midterm
elections wrong: “What we’re going to change with this election is
demonstrate that marijuana on the ballot motivates young people to
turn out and vote. Opportunistic politicians will find out that
marijuana increases youth turnout and that speaking out against drug
reform is to their peril.”Scoping Out the Opposition
Prop. 19′s most vocal opposition comes from the top. Gubernatorial
candidates Meg Whitman and Jerry Brown don’t see eye to eye on much,
but they both seem to have decided it’s politically expedient to
oppose the measure. Senator Dianne Feinstein also recently came out
against it.“I was at a party with doctors who said they used to light up with
Jerry Brown,” says Garzon. “But you know, the reality is that we know
that politicians aren’t going to lead on this issue.”Feinstein, for her part, refers to a Rand study released this month to
justify the idea that “if Proposition 19 passes, the only thing that
would be certain is drug use would go up and the state of California
would run afoul of federal law and risk losing federal funding.”But if you read the actual study, you learn that Rand is still rather
conservative in its ability to prognosticate much: “The proposed
legislation in California would create a large change in policy. As a
result it is uncertain how useful these studies are for making
projections about marijuana legalization.”Yet even a rather staid study like Rand still sees positives such as
tax revenues, which the state has projected could be as high as $1.4
billion annually. As for Feinstein’s claim, there is no reason to
believe Prop. 5 would affect federal funding (which Feinstein will
fight for anyway). As Richard Lee says, similar arguments were used
against Prop. 215 but the medical marijuana measure has not resulted
in less funding coming to California. And regarding the senator’s
assertion that drug use will go up, the opposite may be true. Other
studies show that marijuana use among youth has actually dropped since
medical marijuana was legalized in California. There was a 47 percent
decline among the state’s ninth-graders from 1996 to 2006.“Sen. Feinstein opposed Prop. 215 although she has now come out in
favor of medical marijuana. It’s political math,” Lee says. “With
Prop. 215, all the major politicians and statewide candidates were
against it but it passed with 56 percent of the vote. So if you look
at the polling, the voters don’t trust politicians on this.”Currently, the No on Prop. 19 movement seems relegated to a few small
groups. The most well-funded one is called Public Safety First, which
claims endorsements from the California Chamber of Commerce, the
California Police Chiefs Association and the California Narcotic
Officers’ Association. The group is headed by John Lovell, the
lobbyist for the police and narcotic officers’ unions. Public Safety
First has under 250 fans on Facebook — compared to the over 120,000
Prop. 19 has — and James Rigdon, the Prop. 19 field director, says at
least 20 of them are fans of Prop. 19, too. “Some of them even work
here,” he laughs.A couple volunteer opposition groups have cropped up, too. Citizens
Against Legalizing Marijuana seems to have little if any money behind
it. Another such group, Nip It In The Bud, boasts little more than a
Web site, which depicts a skeleton holding a scroll reading: “Fix
California with pot??? NOT!”Prop. 19 seems more concerned with opposition within the movement than
without it.“From our own side there has been some fragmentation as there is in
all social movements. There’s just different people with different
ideas,” Garzon says. “We’re open to criticism but we’re trying to do
things responsibly. We can’t please everybody but we’ve tried to craft
something that makes sense to a mother in Los Angeles, too. This isn’t
ultimately about the right to smoke, it’s about taxes in our
communities, a failed system, a public health issue.”I told Garzon that a few marijuana activists had written me to say
they were upset about the local control aspect of Prop. 19 — counties
can decide whether to legalize the sale of cannabis. One had called
the regulatory framework confusing and a bureaucratic disaster waiting
to happen.“We’re not instituting a state government aspect, true. But it’ll come
down to who do you want to give your tax dollars to? Local control is
what we need on so many issues but in particular this issue,” he said.
Local governments can decide “ideologically, culturally, operationally
what is right for them. What it does is allows the best of the models
to bubble up to the top. If say, one place does it horribly wrong,
then Pasadena can wait and see how Davis does it. Local governments
can decide not to pass it this year — but those who don’t pass on the
opportunity will take advantage of that extra revenue.”Priscilla A. Pyrk, the Prop. 19 organizer in the Inland Empire, also
hopes to assuage some opposition from within the medical cannabis
community: “Prop. 19 does not have anything to do with the medical
side of cannabis. Prop. 215 stays intact. This can help medical
cannabis patients by alleviating any of the judgment that is currently
focused on them.”Not Much Time Left
How do they win? No one can say for sure, but the fund-raising
strategy will be of paramount importance so the get-out-the-vote game
can succeed. This midterm election cycle, the Prop. 19 campaign has to
convince voters that marijuana prohibition hits on many important
issues vital to their lives.Going forward, the campaign will be heavily publicizing a recently
released report from the non-partisan Legislative Analyst’s Office
which finds that Prop. 19 would put police priorities where they
belong, generate hundreds of millions in revenue and protect the public.The campaign needs to hammer in several points to stand a chance. Its
messaging has to emphasize how marijuana prohibition has been a
costly, senseless disaster. The drug war has strengthened and enriched
violent cartels while law enforcement resources have been wasted on
arresting non-violent marijuana users, ruining lives and siphoning
from key public services that are sorely needed by all Californians.
Prop. 19 must also make clear that taxing and regulating pot will make
it harder for minors to access pot — and that medical marijuana has
proven that increased regulation decreases use by kids. Finally, the
campaign ought to appeal to voters by reminding them that this
initiative is their opportunity to take a stand where politicians have
been reluctant to act. In other words, the time is now.If the campaign is successful, Californians will wake up on Nov. 3 to
find that marijuana prohibition is finally over. If it isn’t, at least
we will be a step closer to that possibility.**********************************************************************
Suggestions for writing letters are at our Media Activism Center
http://www.mapinc.org/resource/#guides
For facts about marijuana please see http://www.drugwarfacts.org/cms/node/53
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Prepared by: Richard Lake http://www.mapinc.org
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