prop 19

By MATT APUZZO, AP

 

President Barack Obama sued to keep Arizona from writing its own immigration laws. Now, every former Drug Enforcement Administration boss is asking whether he'll do the same to stop California from legalizing marijuana.

 

In a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, all nine former DEA administrators said legalizing pot presented the same threat to federal authority as Arizona's immigration crackdown.

 

The letter raises questions about when the federal government should wade into debates over state laws. While Obama has made immigration an important issue for his administration, steering the debate over legalizing marijuana has not been a focus of his agenda. Read more »

By Michael W. Savage, Washington Post

 

For those who have long argued that smoking marijuana should not be a crime, a potentially historic turning point is just weeks away.

 

Voters in California will decide Nov. 2 whether to make their state the first to legalize the growing, selling and recreational use of marijuana. And polls here - the nation's most populous state - suggest that residents are about evenly split on the issue.

 

Proposition 19, as it is known, would take away criminal penalties for people 21 and older for possession of one ounce or less of marijuana.

 

If it becomes law, it would mark yet another legal milestone for the state. Fourteen years ago, California became the first to allow the use of marijuana for medical purposes. Since then, 13 other states and the District have followed suit.

 

Advocates for legalization say they hope the vote in November will set off another trend across the nation.

 

"If and when this passes," said Jeff Jones, a longtime cannabis advocate who was arrested a decade ago for opening a medical marijuana dispensary, "you will see stories around the world saying this was a major shift in drug policy." Read more »

By J. Patrick Coolican

 

The Times has a handy database for tracking money going to the forces of "yes" and "no" on Proposition 19, the voter initiative that would make it legal to possess, share or transport less than one ounce of marijuana if you're 21 or older, while also allowing limited cultivation. Local government would then regulate and tax pot.

 

So far, the "yes" on Prop. 19 side has amassed a huge financial advantage of $1.78 million to just $61,600 against, though much of the 'yes' money is coming from a single source.

 

Individuals and groups associated with Oakersterdam, the herbalist college whose founder Richard Lee is Prop. 19's biggest backer, have given more than $550,000. Other big backers include $100,000 from Phil Harvey of DKT International in North Carolina, which says it is the "largest private provider of contraceptives and family planning services in the developing world"; $5,000 from Berkeley Patients Group; $1,449.47 from Yes We Cannabis; a clever $420 donation came from Darrel Claridge, a financial planner for City National Bank; $20,000 from Dustin Moscovitz, co-founder of Asana; $12,689 from the president of the California chapter of Norml, the marijuana reform group; $1,500 from Etienne Fontan of Berkeley Patients Group; $20,500 from George Zimmer, CEO of Men's Warehouse ("You're gonna like the way you look"); $1,000 came from Marsha Rosenbaum of the JK Irwin Foundation; at least $5,000 came from an L.A. photographer named Alexander Campbell; $2,000 from a Google software engineer named Nathan Gaylinn (God love today's liberal corporate cultures); and, at least 25,000 came from Odam LA Collective. Read more »

By Ellen Komp, Cannabis Culture

 

Talking about legalization is good, but doing something is better.

 

A remarkable exchange occurred on the Jay Leno show the other night between Jay and Rep. Barney Frank. It was a heavyweight bout, touching on whether or not the government should outlaw, or tax instead, consensual crimes like online gambling and smoking marijuana.

 

Leno stated that marijuana was de facto legal in this country, and that "anyone who wants to smoke marijuana can smoke it." Au contraire, Jay. Unless one is lucky enough to host a talk show, or land a job as a musician on one, they likely work in an occupation which allows or demands urine testing. If they test "dirty," they can lose their jobs, whether or not they have a medical marijuana exemption. The ability to discriminate against medical marijuana users in the workplace was affirmed the by the California Supreme Court and although Cal NORML helped pass a bill to change that, our governator Arnold Schwarzenegger, himself a former pot smoker who's joked about it on Leno's show, vetoed it twice. Read more »

By. Business in Vancouver Magazine

 

With Marc Emery, B.C.’s leading marijuana activist, expected to receive a five-year jail sentence in the United States this Friday, his wife and fellow activist Jodie Emery is pointing to recent developments in the U.S.A.’s legalized marijuana movement as further evidence of the hypocrisy of the American and Canadian criminal codes.

 

“Five years after his initial arrest you have California looking to legalize marijuana this fall [and] you have the original prosecutor in his case saying that marijuana should be legalized,” Jodie told Business in Vancouver on Tuesday morning.

 

Jodie, who is the director of Cannabis Culture magazine and director-at-large for B.C.’s Green Party, also continues to claim that Marc’s arrest, which stemmed from the online sale of pot seeds from Canada into the U.S., was largely politically motivated. Read more »

By. Paul Armentano, NORML

 

Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske, along with five previous drug czars (including former 'high roller' William Bennett), recently penned an op/ed in the Los Angeles Times condemning California’s Proposition 19 , The Regulate, Control & Tax Cannabis Initiative of 2010. It is no surprise that America's present and former drug czars oppose the passage of Prop. 19. After all, the drug czar is required by law "to oppose any attempt to legalize the use of a substance that is listed in schedule I of section 202 of the Controlled Substances Act." In other words, it would actually be illegal for President Obama's drug czar, Gil Kerlikowske, to voice an opinion that didn't publicly condemn the measure. Predictably, the czars' opposition is out of step with voter sentiment on the issue -- which according to the latest polltracker.com data shows Californians supporting the measure 51 percent to 37 percent.

 

So just what would Prop. 19 do? Read more »

By. Norm Stamper, Huffington Post

 

Imagine it. Grownup Californians making a choice that should never have been denied them in the first place.

 

Proposition 19, the Regulate, Control, and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010 would allow adults in that state to possess up to an ounce of marijuana for personal consumption; to use marijuana in a non-public place; and to grow the weed at a private residence in an area not to exceed 25 square feet.

 

Whether you live in New Jersey or Tennessee, Texas or Oregon, there are compelling reasons for you and residents of all the other states to actively support this campaign in California.

 

Who should favor, and therefore work for the passage of Proposition 19? An abbreviated list, including both overlapping and contradictory stakeholders:

 

Law enforcement whose members face on the one hand the prospect of sudden, violent death at the hands of drug cartels and street gangs, and on the other the hostility they encounter when enforcing draconian, everybody-loses prohibition laws; Read more »

By. Russ Belville, Opposing Views

 

At Seattle Hempfest, the joint-to-ounce ratio is closer to 1:1

 

The Christian Science Monitor features a “one minute debate” between our own Paul Armentano and legendary prohibitionist Calvina Fay, executive director of the Drug Free America Foundation. I have a question: what kind of pinners does Calvina Fay roll?

 

Legalizing marijuana use would substantially increase its already formidable costs to society. That’s because the initiative would allow individuals to possess up to about 120 joints and cultivate 25 square feet of plants, capable of yielding up to 240,000 joints. Read more »

By Paul Armentano

 

Last week I posted a brief response to the Los Angeles Times commentary authored by Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske (along with five previous drug czars) condemning California’s Prop. 19.

 

Today the Los Angeles Times has posted my full rebuttal, which I’ve excerpted below.

 

Some marijuana tax revenue is better than none

via The Los Angeles Times

 

… Kerlikowske’s opposition to Proposition 19 … is a fairly common one. Kerlikowske et al argue that, if legalized, marijuana’s perceived social costs would outweigh the economic benefits reaped by regulation. They base this allegation largely on the premise that present taxes on alcohol and cigarettes fail to adequately pay for the societal costs associated with those drugs’ use and abuse. True enough, but here’s why this sound bite is irrelevant to the present marijuana debate. Read more »

By. Christian Science Monitor

 

During this midterm election season, the Monitor will feature a series of "one-minute debates" on top political issues.

Yes: State regulation of adult use makes sense

 

California voters this November will decide on Proposition 19, which seeks to control and regulate the adult use of marijuana. Critics claim that cannabis is not harmless. Yet it is precisely because marijuana is a psychoactive substance that it ought to be legalized and controlled accordingly.

 

After all, we don’t tax and regulate alcohol – which poses far greater risks – because it’s innocuous. We do so because we recognize that booze temporarily alters mood and behavior and thus should be regulated appropriately, along with controls regarding who can legally produce it, distribute it, consume it, and under what circumstances its use is lawfully permitted. These same principles ought to apply to cannabis. Read more »