Disclaimer - I live in LA and have a medical card although I thankfully do not have any condition that requires the use of pot to alleviate a serious condition. I am not the heavy smoker I once was but use it more for recreational, relaxing reasons and then only at night.
I spoke to a few of the people involved in drafting the medical pot proposal that passed in 1996. It would have created a legal and logistical nightmare as well as turn some growers and customers into felons.
Firstly everyone growing would have to get a license from the local city/town etc
This is what Prop 19 said:
"Prohibit and punish through civil fines or other remedies the possession, sale, possession for sale, cultivation, processing, or transportation of cannabis that was not obtained lawfully from a person pursuant to this section or section 11300."
In Rancho Cordoba, a town north of San Diego the council had already passed a law charging an insanely high tax per square foot - a 10 x 10 growing space would cost $90,000 a year. As a customer I would have to carry legal proof that any pot I have was legally acquired from a licensed grower/dealer. I would have to get a receipt and carry that receipt with me to smoke legally. Selling or even smoking with anyone under 21 would become a criminal act. Read this No on 19 story and you will understand why it had to lose.
Prop 19 was sponsored by a rich businessman, Richard Lee who owns two dispensaries in Oakland set up Prop 19 as a vehicle to become the largest, most profitable legal grower in the state. As one veteran of the medical pot wars said to me, "He wants to become the Annheuser of weed." Prop 19 as written would have made it difficult and far too expensive to legally grow by local authorities such as in Rancho Cordova, a model that would have been copies throughout the state. Read this link to get the full story on
http://stop19.com/about_prop_19/ Currently anyone with a medical card can legally grow up to 8 plants. If that person lived in Rancho Cordova it would become economically impossible for him to grow only 8 plants so what is now legal would have become illegal. More and more people are starting to grow their own. It's not that expensive to set up and more and more growers are learning how to get the best yields etc, and not have the plants die. Indoors you can grow 3-4 crops a year so the outdoor growers in Humboldt etc are already feeling a bit of the hurt. The Mexican drug cartels are barely involved in the Calif pot business.
Schwarzenegger recently signed a law reducing the possession of up to an ounce to below a misdemeanor to the level of a parking ticket with a max fine of $100 if you don't have a medical card. Prop 19 could increase the penalties for someone who doesn't have the right documentation. Every buyer would have to be given a receipt for each purchase under Prop 19. No paperwork is requited when one buys from a dispensary now.
Despite the economy, the current law allows a lot of people to make money (not fortunes in most cases) in the pot business. It's a healthy legal to quasi legal business that is growing organically. Prop 19 would have put tons of people out of business and would have concentrated the wealth in the hands of a few powerful and rich growers, like many American industries,
A far better proposition will come along soon and when it does it will pass. As with so many Propositions, especially from the right, they are couched in language that sounds reasonable and appears to make sense. You have to dig deep at times to find out what it's really all about. If 19 had passed it would have created a nightmare that would have been all but impossible to undo.
Here are a couple of other sites that explain the legal problems it would have created,
http://all247news.com/california-marijuana-users-oppose-proposition-19-tax-and-control-marijuana-initiative/7228/http://votetaxcannabis2010.blogspot.com/p/read-this-before-you-vote-prop-19.html
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