Pubdate: Mon, 8 Nov 2010
Source: Press-Enterprise (Riverside, CA)
Copyright: 2010 The Press-Enterprise Company
Contact: http://www.pe.com/localnews/opinion/letters_form.html
Website: http://www.pe.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/830
Author: Jim Miller, Sacramento Bureau
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?115 (Cannabis - California)

POT LEGALIZATION PROPONENTS AREN'T GIVING UP

SACRAMENTO - California voters likely have not seen the last of 
efforts to legalize marijuana despite last week's defeat of Prop. 19.

Legalization advocates are weighing a return to the ballot in 2012.

And the author of an unsuccessful Assembly bill to legalize pot 
intends to introduce similar legislation early next year.

"We had a debate that was just heard around the world. The 
conversation has only begun," Dale Jones, a yes-on-Prop. 19 
spokeswoman, said after Tuesday's election.

But the initiative's critics said proponents of legalizing pot should 
direct their energies elsewhere, such as by standardizing the 
hodgepodge of local rules on medical marijuana, which voters approved in 1996.

"It's a very unregulated, chaotic world right now," said George Mull, 
president of the California Cannabis Association, which opposed Prop. 19.

The widely watched measure would have legalized personal use for 
people 21 and over. The state or local governments could have chosen 
to regulate and tax large-scale marijuana cultivation.

Polls showed Prop. 19 leading in late September, but its support soon 
began to sag. Opponents attacked the measure as poorly worded.

Two weeks before the election, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder 
warned that federal authorities would "vigorously enforce" laws 
against anyone who grows, possesses or sells marijuana for recreational use.

Prop. 19 received 46.3 percent of the vote, passing in only about a 
dozen counties. Some of the heaviest opposition came in the Inland 
area, with 58.1 percent of Riverside County voters and 58.5 percent 
of San Bernardino County voters opposed.

Still, almost 3.5 million people liked the idea, a threshold reached 
by few other candidates or initiatives on Tuesday's ballot.

"That speaks volumes to the support that's out there," said Quintin 
Mecke, a spokesman for Assemblyman Tom Ammiano. Also, voters in 10 
cities approved taxes on sales of medical and recreational pot.

Ammiano, D-San Francisco, introduced legislation in the last session 
to legalize marijuana and tax marijuana at $50 an ounce. One of his 
bills passed an Assembly committee in January but stopped there.

Ammiano plans to re-introduce the measure early next year after 
talking to Prop. 19 supporters and others, Mecke said.

Mull said lawmakers instead should focus on medical marijuana rules 
instead trying to legalize recreational pot.

He advocates the creation of a California Cannabis Commission to 
oversee marijuana dispensaries, transportation and other aspects of 
the industry.

Legalization supporters say they also might go back to the ballot. 
Public sentiment, they say, is on their side.

In September, the Field Poll reported that 50 percent of California 
voters support legalizing marijuana. In 1969, just 13 percent of 
voters backed the idea.

And a poll commissioned by Prop. 19 supporters suggests that it was 
problems with Prop. 19, and not the prospect of legalized pot, which 
led to its defeat.

The poll by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner found that 31 percent of "no" 
voters support legalization.

"We've legitimized the discussion," said Jim Gray, a former Superior 
Court judge in Orange County who supported Prop. 19.

Gray and others blamed last-minute "scare tactics" by opponents for 
Tuesday's loss.

Nevertheless, Jones said supporters plan to meet with critics to try 
to craft a future ballot measure or legislation.

Prop. 19 supporters heavily outspent opponents. Wayne Johnson, who 
managed the No-on-19 campaign, said the outcome shows that many 
voters are leery of giving free rein to a drug deemed illegal by the 
federal government.

The opposition campaign, he added, found a particularly receptive 
audience among non-white voters and those in lower-income areas. 
Those communities have first-hand knowledge of the problems caused by 
drugs, he said.

"The marijuana vote in California is basically a middle-class, 
upper-middle-class, white vote," Johnson said last week.
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake