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| Vol. 4, Issue 5 May 2012 |
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Letters From |
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California |
Up in smoke
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| How a referendum to legalise marijuana failed in California |
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Published : 1 January 2011 |
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DAVID PAUL MORRIS / BLOOMBERG VIA GETTY IMAGE |
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| Volunteers with the Yes On 19 campaign to legalise marijuana make phone calls to voters at the group’s headquarters at Oaksterdam.
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| L |
EGALISING MARIJUANA should have been
an easy sell in laid-back, pot-friendly California.
The leaf is ubiquitous here. Whiffs of
the distinct, sticky-sweet odour of pot smoke
hang around nightspots, house parties and
even busy downtown streets. |
The Golden State was the first to officially allow medicinal
use of marijuana back in 1996. Legalising recreational
use would have been the next logical step in a state reputed
for thinking out of the box and showing the way to the rest
of the United States.
Yet last month Californians rejected a ballot proposal to
decriminalise cannabis use.
The proposal—Proposition 19 or the Regulate, Control
and Tax Cannabis Act—called for allowing anyone 21 or
older grow and possess marijuana, and for permitting local
governments to tax retail outlets selling the drug.
Richard Lee, a wheelchair-bound marijuana patient and
entrepreneur who introduced the ballot measure in March,
believes taxing and controlling cannabis cultivation and
sale—a 14 billion dollar (631 billion rupees) industry in California
would end the current ‘grey area’ under which the
industry operates and bring tax dollars of up to 1.4 billion
into the state’s recession-hit coffers. He says it would also
free up police resources and reduce nonviolent marijuana
use arrests that disproportionately target minority youth.
“To me, most of all, it’s a moral thing, all the other positive
benefits are added bonuses,” says Lee, who forked out 1.5 million
dollars from his own fortune to fund the proposition.
Pot possession under any condition is illegal under the
federal Controlled Substances Act. Which means, even in
California and 14 other states where medical marijuana use
is legal, the industry operates in quasi-legal zone. Marijuana
activists hope legalising and regulating the drug at state
levels will ultimately force the feds to do the same.
America has had a long and checkered relationship with
cannabis. In the 1600s it was widely used for pain relief
and the government actually encouraged using hemp
plant fibers for making rope, sails and clothing. In the early
1900s, after Mexican immigrants introduced recreational
use of marijuana, fear and prejudice about the “foreigners”
resulted in pot being associated with murder, insanity
and sex crimes. In the 1960s it was recast as a drug that
made users slow and slothful, but its popularity among the counterculture hippy generation led to the birth of a movement
to legalise use. In the 1990s marijuana began to be accepted
as a herb that helps patients suffering from chronic
pain, cancer and AIDS. Starting with California in 1996, a
total of 14 other states and the District of Columbia have
since legalised medical use of cannabis. The latest to join
the bandwagon is Arizona, which voted aye on Nov. 2.
Initially, Prop 19 created quite a positive buzz across the
US since marijuana use has been gaining increasing acceptance
among Americans. In California, early polls indicated
a majority of voters were pro-legalisation. However, by the
time November rolled around, support for the initiative
began to fizzle. On Election Day, Prop 19 failed by a 7.8 percent
margin.
So what happened between May and November to cause
the initiative to go bust?
As the election dust settles, emerging answers all point
toward the current quasi-regulated state of the marijuana
industry in California and a decided reluctance among a
section of pot’s traditional supporters—growers, suppliers
and users—to change the status quo.
New marijuana users already feel they have easy access to
the drug in California. All you need to get a doctor to sign off
on a medical marijuana card is to come up with some sort
of chronic pain complaint and submit yourself to a physical
examination. The card allows a person to carry 225 grams
of the dried leaf or 160 pot cigarettes. There are an estimated
200,000 physician-sanctioned pot smokers and nearly
300 dispensaries in California. It’s not unusual for medical
marijuana to make its way around to recreational users for
a small fee (One person I talked to actually handed me a
‘sample packet’ for free).
Any sense of urgency around the legalisation issue among
users was further neutralised a month before the elections
when Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed legislation
that made possession of up to an ounce of marijuana the
equivalent of a traffic ticket, subject to a maximum 100-dollar
fine and no arrest or criminal record.
“That for me was as good as legalisation and I think many
Californians felt the same way. It took the wind out of Prop
19’s sails,” says David M Ruddy, a Berkeley-based musician,
who still voted yes.
On the growers’ and suppliers’ side, Prop 19 raised fears
of large tobacco industry-like corporations taking over, lowering prices and pushing out mom and pop pot dispensaries
and family-owned farms that currently make up the
bulk of the industry. The initiative received little support
from the state’s infamous marijuana-growing ‘Emerald
Triangle’ of Humboldt, Mendocino and Trinity counties.
Besides, many growers in California live off the grid and
have no interest in paying taxes. Among those who do pay,
or were willing to be taxed, a pre-election statement from
US Attorney General Eric Holder saying that the feds would
“vigorously enforce” federal anti-marijuana laws if Prop 19
was passed, was a major put off. Why vote for taxation when
all it will do is ensure the feds beat a path to your door?
The measure’s failure in the Emerald Triangle also highlighted
hinterland farmers’ growing resentment of the increasing
clout of city-based pot entrepreneurs like Lee.
Lee is based in Oakland, across the bay from San Francisco,
where he’s considered the de facto mayor of a nine-block
area in the city, dubbed Oaksterdam. Medical cannabis
in a variety of smokeable and edible forms (cookies, pies,
salad dressing, etc.) is sold in several licenced cafés and
dispensaries here, some of which are owned by Lee. He’s
also founder-president of Oaksterdam University, a nonaccredited
educational facility and ‘political institution’
for medical pot growers and activists. Since it was set up in
2007, with its green, white and gold CAN NA BIS emblem
(a cheeky nod to Harvard’s VE RI TAS), the university has
become the epicentre of California’s marijuana legalisation
campaign. For many growers Oaksterdam and Lee represent
the beginnings of corporate takeover.
But Lee brushes such concerns aside. “I think that scenario
is years away because until federal law changes it’s gonna be difficult for really big growers to come in,” he says.
What he does admit though, is that the yes campaign
didn’t do a good enough job of addressing these concerns,
targeting young voters or highlighting why legalisation
was desirable. “I think we need to do a better job of talking
about how California already collects 100 million dollars a
year in medical marijuana sales taxes and all these companies,
including mine, pay federal income taxes,” he says.
Lee also agrees that the wording of the proposition itself
might have been problematic. “A lot of people said they were
for legalisation but they still voted against it. So maybe they
had particular issues with the proposition that we can work
on and tweak and make better next time,” he says.
And there will be a next time.
Legalisation supporters are already gearing up for the
2012 elections, and it’s clear that the tide is turning in their
favour. The 46 percent ‘yes’ vote for Prop 19 was the highest
ever for any general marijuana legalisation proposal in
the United States. Even opponents concede that full legalisation
is inevitable. Roger Salazar, spokesperson for the No
on Prop 19 campaign says the main reason the initiative
failed was because it was “so poorly written.” He’s right. A Greenberg Quinlan Rosner survey taken two days after
the elections showed 31 percent of those who voted against
Prop 19 believed “marijuana should be legalised or penalties
for marijuana should be reduced” but opposed the specifics
of proposition.
It looks like California’s largest cash crop is all set to
emerge from the shadows. As Ethan Nadelmann, executive
director of the Drug Policy Alliance, a national drug reform
organisation, says—it’s not a matter of if, but when.
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