AlterNet: California's Marijuana Legalization Initiative is Already a Winner

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AlterNet / By Tony Newman and Stephen Gutwillig

California's Marijuana Legalization Initiative is Already a Winner
Ten weeks from Election Day, it’s clear how much Prop. 19 has already accomplished for the drug policy reform movement.


Californians have a chance to make history in November when they vote on Proposition 19, which would legalize marijuana for adults over 21. Polls collectively show voters split but leaning toward this momentous stand against failed marijuana prohibition. Ten weeks from Election Day, it’s clear how much Prop. 19 has already accomplished for the drug policy reform movement.

Conventional wisdom about changing marijuana laws previously called for waiting until at least 2012. It was assumed waiting would allow the reform movement time to build more support for the issue and to rely on the larger, younger electorate that inevitably accompanies a presidential election. Sensing the time was right this year, Oakland-based medical marijuana entrepreneur Richard Lee ignored that conventional wisdom. He brought together a top notch team to carefully draft an initiative, put up his own money to collect signatures, built an impressive campaign, and took Prop. 19 to the people.

Today, Richard Lee already appears remarkably prescient.

Prop. 19 is arguably the highest profile voter initiative in the nation and has unleashed a torrent of global interest. The initiative has generated thousands of international stories, explicitly discussing this alternative to our disastrous policies. In particular Prop. 19 has radically accelerated the public’s understanding of the relative harms of marijuana, tobacco, and alcohol, validating the widespread suspicion that a fundamental hypocrisy lies at the heart of the outright ban on marijuana -- as evidenced by the endorsement of former U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Joycelyn Elders.

Prop. 19 has inspired an unprecedented coalition in support of reforming our futile and wasteful marijuana laws. Students for Sensible Drug Policy and Firedoglake.com organized students, law-enforcement, libertarians and progressives to launch their “Just Say Now” campaign. The California NAACP, the state ACLU affiliates, and the National Black Police Association all endorsed Prop. 19 specifically citing the chilling racial disparities in the enforcement of marijuana laws. Latino leadership, starting recently with Assembly Member Hector De La Torre and the Latino Voters League, has just begun to weigh in as well. Finally, organized labor -- from longshoremen to food to communications workers -- for the first time offered endorsements because controlling and regulating marijuana will mean jobs and revenue that the state currently cedes to criminal cartels and the black market. ..............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/drugs/147931/california%27s_marijuana_legalization_initiative_is_already_a_winner/