Disclaimer: I'll admit, I'm not dedicated enough to document and source everything that I'm going to say, so take it all with a grain of salt. What I might be spewing from my mind may be complete and utter bullshit. You have been warned. Also, I did not vote - yes yes, I'm not doing my civic duty, I'm taking for granted a right given to me, etc etc etc. I can't really weasel my way out of this one. I'm just going to say I kept pushing it back until it got to the point where I couldn't even if I wanted. Sue me. More on this later.
So why does a guy like me - never having tried the herb, nor (at least for now) never planning on ever trying it - want to see it legalized? Well, first and foremost, I like to fancy myself as fairly liberal when it comes to most social issues. I also like to consider myself a champion of free will (hah). Thus, it's a core belief of mine that individuals should be able to do what they want in their own private time, provided it does not cause physical or mental harm on another, unwilling individual/party.
Also, considering the huge fucking drug war in Mexico, it's probably a good idea to do what we can here to stop cartel wars and violence in our neighbors to the South - Mexico, Colombia, etc etc etc.
Prop 19 - a proposition to (supposedly) legalize marijuana - is looking to fail. I don't know if the results are all in at the time of this writing, but it's pretty much unanimous among news stations - Prop 19 is going to fail.
My first impression of Prop 19 - A hint of surprise. Maybe it's the product of living in a college area (no matter how dull), but nonetheless, I was taken slightly aback by the failure of 19. Yet, my immediate reaction to my first impression was... "Hmm, somehow, I guess I'm not completely surprised." Take Prop 8 for example. I felt a little surprised when it failed - with so much publicity and "support" for NO on 8, I guess I expected it to win. But it didn't. And we see the same thing here.
Other than the moral standpoint - I wanted to see why one would vote No on 19. I looked up an outline of the proposition itself, a couple articles/blogs on No on 19, and some more stuff. As I looked into it, I could understand why it might actually have been a good thing for 19 to fail.
First off. The damn thing is already decriminalized in CA, courtesy of the Governator. Also, where is it that California gets a lot of its current weed? Growers all over the state, am I not at least partly correct? So is this measure actually going to stop cartel violence, the War on Drugs? Somehow, I feel like America's addiction to harder drugs like cocaine and heroin are probably the bigger, if not total, cause of the WoD. If we truly want to stop cartel violence, we can either nuke them all to oblivion, or do the more sane thing and stop buying hard drugs. Cartels are businesses (albeit, extremely dirty, disgusting businesses) - they supply our demand, so it ultimately lies on us to stop them, does it not?
Back to Prop 19. Does this thing actually increase our overall freedoms? It allows you to grow weed on a space that cannot exceed 25m^2. May not be much, but hey, its something right? Not when you can only grow that much per property - not individual. So if you're living with four other people on a plot of land bigger than the moon... tough luck. Unless you want to obtain a license which will invariably cost an arm and leg to obtain and maintain. "In Oakland, the city that's setting the precedent in the tax cannabis push, a license costs $30,000. Per year. Not to mention the rigorous application process, in which even well-established, law-abiding dispensaries have been denied." Not surprisingly, and quite conveniently, the dude that wrote up this proposition is one of the few people to own these licenses - and he happens to be a millionaire. Can anyone else see how this is quickly going to be corporatized up the ass? Turned into factory farming?
"But Andrew" you say, "Cigarettes and Alcohol are basically corporatized too?" I'm going to take cigarettes out of the picture by saying that cigarettes aren't really something a regular old joe can make at home considering the how many fucking-thousands of chemicals and shit go in it. Now, with alcohol, yes there are huge companies making a shit tonne of alcohol, mass producing it. But here's the distinct difference - you can make your own beers (granted you can't sell it, but its a whole different issue). Smaller, local businesses can brew their own drinks and sell them, but under Prop 19, smaller growers of weed will be unable to grow and sell "better" weed simply because they cannot get a license.
Which brings us to our next topic. 1 oz. One single ounce of weed is all that is going to be legalized. Caught with more and 19 will mean absolutely fucking nothing. Nothing at all. The best part? Remember how weed was decriminalized in CA? Guess how much? One. Fucking. Ounce. So is anything really changing or is this all meaningless rhetoric, the usual politics? Oh, and remember those licenses that almost no one will probably be able to get? If you've got any weed, even if you have under one ounce, hope that you bought it from a licensed dealer and that you've kept the receipt.
One last small thing - Arnie, our former governator who decriminalized it to 1 oz - did not support 19. Called it "deeply flawed," and said it overstated the amount of revenue it would bring in (Even then, would the revenue brought in even go towards education or anything useful?). Dennis Peron - the dude that championed legalization in the 90s and wrote up the proposition that legalized medical marijuana, also rejected the proposition. Both Dianne Feinstein, and Barbara Boxer, our esteemed senators rejected it. (Though one has to wonder, how long are they going to be in office, is there any reason there aren't any goddamn term limits?)
I'm starting to get a little lazy when it comes to this, forgive me, so I'm just going to link a couple of sites (They're virus free. I'm sure. I think.) Read for yourself,
There are some other things I wish to address that may or may not be related to Prop 19.
1. Shit happens. So Prop 19 failed. Don't go nailing people that voted No or oppose legalization around on crosses because it failed. Do we seriously have to resort to slinging shit every single fucking time anything does not happen in our favor? Does it make us so morally and intellectualy superior that we believe in something that some others do not? Hell fucking no.
2. This isn't the last time this kind of thing is going to happen. I have no doubt in my mind that legalization is inevitable. So you don't get to smoke your huge stash of herb yet... legally. Big fucking deal, get over it - you're more than likely going to have a chance at it again in a few years.
3. I know my "research" was mostly half assed and incomplete. It's true, I've yet to read the entire proposition in its fullest, and I haven't seen or read nearly as many articles as I probably should to call myself an informed individual. But tell me, how much have you researched? How many different sources did you try to look into? Have any of us really researched (including me) or are we just regurgitating what we hear and see from those exciting little pamphlets that people spread and blurb about to everyone else?
4. And more generally - to everyone else jaded with the dual party system, the lack of any real difference between the Democrat or Republican (am I going to voting in the huge fucking cunt, or the other huge fucking cunt?) - look into your other options. Despite what others may say - casting your vote for a third part candidate is not throwing away your vote. If you're waiting for the system to change before you're willing to change... well, good lucking waiting till kingdom come - that kind of change can't come from the people that perpetuate it. Even the smallest pebble can make a large ripples on the surface of the lake. (Yes, I realize I'm a hypocrite for saying that even though I didn't vote. Sue me.)
tl;dr - Prop 19 isn't all that it seems. If you really want something that will truly legalize it, look into CCHHI for 2012.