Well, I am disappointed that Prop 19 didn't pass, but my eyes are opened up to where things stand.
I am also disappointed that the opposition created no effort at a cogent rhetorical argument against -- everything I heard, saw, or read was an appeal to emotion (mostly Fear) at the end of the day. No real debate of logic or reason.
What then would it take to be so reasonable as to shut out the opposition entirely:
Firstly, the measure failed in all the major growing areas! Also it failed in LA and SD, where I sense that had the Proposition somehow not stepped on fewer toes, then this may have passed without the support of the growers.
In his article, John Walker points out that exit polling found 30% of "NO" voters supported legalization-- just not 19!
That would suggest that a simple ballot proposal which only focused on the idea of making legal cannabis (in all its forms, including industrial) will pass.
Next, the simple folk wisdom that at the end of the day Prop 19 was a proposal to tax people, and I feel old when I think back to all the very good ideas I have seen, or helped put onto ballots, and even voted on, that dont pass for one basic fact-- the idea to raise taxes is a bad starting position.
Dont get me wrong, Prop 19 was well past deficit neutral, but it certainly appears that the 60-40 rule (when if you propose a tax it has the default position, regardless of issue, of being down 20%-- so to vote in a tax you need a virtual super-majority of enthusiasm, just to get to 51%!) was in full effect here.
So, then that suggests we need to legalize cannabis without creating taxes through referendum.
Finally, at the end of the day, it is certain that those people who operate directly or indirectly with the less than legal aspects of the current #1 Cash Crop, were overwhelmingly against the proposition for a wide range of hallucinations: market prices would drop (making this less profitable); medical marijuana laws would be hampered (which it wouldn't, but for certain operators the same issue of profitability would have potentially come into play); and claims of being poorly crafted (which would not have been as much of an issue because Ammiano would have reintroduced Bill to Legalize, Tax Marijuana, and thus harmonized and cleaned up any outstanding or unclear issues) seems to have been code for "let's not kill the goose laying golden eggs."
To summarize, the initiative that will pass sooner than later, must (a) be simple, clear, and complete; (b) should not prohibit, nor prescribe any taxes or fees; and (c) must be supported by the over ~60% of eligible voters who actually support an end of prohibition-- growers, suppliers, medical marijuana-ists, law enforcement, unions, churches, civic organizations, and maybe even another party (besides the Libertarians) that fully backs the initiative.
To whit the simplest proposal available for every state in every election year until prohibition is ended:
Shall Cannabis, its cultivation, harvest, products, by-products, use, sale, and distribution remain illegal?
Full text of the initiative;
A yes vote shall change nothing.
A no vote shall render all state and local laws against Cannabis void. If so voided, then the people will by force of this vote recommend the matter to state and local governments to establish regulation, tax, and control.
That simple, really.
I think the strategists, movers and shakers are well to get something as simple as this proposal onto a couple of 2011 ballots (maybe CA?).
If this issue can get onto the 2012 ballot in say a dozen or two of the major states where the movement is strong (WA, OR, CA, NV, CO, NM, MT, NE, MN, MS, OH, NC, NY, ME, HI, et. al.), then I imagine there will be an end of prohibition-- doesn't matter if it's 2 months, two years or two decades later-- we are very close to the beginning of the end of prohibition.
This strategy is a simple existentialist dilemma, which is designed only to jeopordize the continuation of Prohibition.
Finally, as I may not write another pro-Hemp article for fifteen days, months, or maybe another 15 years (hopefully not), I would like to re-iterate and respond to the question of why I support legalization:
Our founders had declared that the innate disposition of the character of the American Citizen is a free person who reserves and is granted by the Almighty an inherent right to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of happiness. Further, the right to privacy is implied within the bounds of social order and safety of the state.
To have something, a plant, literally something that can grow as a weed, a volunteer, that has been misrepresented as in the same category as Heroine, when in fact it is less harmful than Alcohol, and has outstanding benefit to the industry and health of humanity, then as stewards of this little blue marble, we earthlings, must make free that plant, animal, or being. This is the ethical implication.
To arrest people for an activity that human beings have engaged in since the dawn of history itself is madness. This the moral implication.
The definition of Liberty may be argued in massive volumes, but put simply: "the right of the individual to live and pursue happiness within lawful means without infringing upon an other's liberties, nor antagonism towards the state."
As such, so long as we perpetuate false myths, rumors, and stories about reality itself and facts as such, we create a society of suspicious minds (to quote Elvis) that is in genuine conflict with the ideals of Freedom and a right to Pursue happiness.
So long as another American's reasonable expectations of ordinary individual Liberties are being infringed upon, then this implicates us each and all as fellow citizens to understand that some element from our own choices in life may be also similarly put asunder arbitrarily and capriciously by the government. This is the philosophical argument.
And finally, like any good red-blooded capitalist from America, the most important issue is that of making dark markets bright, fair, and regulated places, and spreading the benefits of what is basically a TRILLION DOLLAR industry back unto the populace from whence its also is gainful of those basic services taxpayers provided for these outlaws (yes, as in "when freedom is Outlawed, then only Outlaws will be free!") to be benefitted from the roads, services, and infrastructure whereby the goose may so continue to lay golden eggs, and all of us are granted a right to have geese! Revenues gained by the States and Municipalities from all the new profits would have probably exceeded estimates over time.
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California just missed a multi-billion dollar chance at a major fifteen to twenty year first-mover advantage!
