#proposition 19

[mdlomas]

Proposition 19

Proposition 19 went into effect on April 1, 2021, protecting millions of older homeowners, homeowners with severe disabilities, and victims

[braatah-blog]

Ballot initiative would tax marijuana like wine

Supporters are gathering signatures for an initiative that would decriminalize marijuana in California for those older than 21. The measure, dubbed the Regulate Marijuana Like Wine Act, would tax and regulate the cultivation, production and sale of cannabis using grape and wine industry standards.

“We’re taking something that’s unregulated and we’re replacing it with a known successful program implemented by the California alcohol beverage control board,” said co-author Steve Kubby, who also helped draft and promote Proposition 215, California’s first medical cannabis law. "We know it works great with wine. It’s already in place."

The measure [PDF] currently is written to exempt people from permitting fees who are growing up to 25 plants, but Kubby said he and others have decided to amend that to 12 plants per parcel. Commercial growers exceeding that limit would be subject to regulations and fees similar to those for grape farmers. Those selling cannabis products would be taxed and regulated under state rules that currently apply to wine and other alcoholic beverages, with an exception for hemp products with no hallucinogenic properties.

“If you’re going to treat it like wine, you have to have an exemption for people who make their own wine or make their own cannabis,” Kubby said. “Now, if they sell it, then they have to pay tax on it. The intent really is for your own stash at home.”

The initiative also bars state government and law enforcement officials from assisting the federal government in prosecuting individuals for marijuana use or cultivation.

“We all understand that federal law will trump state law in this regard,” said Jim Gray, a former judge and co-author of the measure. “So we’re telling the federal government, 'We know you can enforce it, but if you’re going to, you have to do it by yourself. And by the way, you’re going to have to come to a jury of Californians, and I think getting a conviction would be problematic.' ”

Concerns over federal opposition helped defeat Proposition 19 [PDF], a measure on a 2010 ballot that would have legalized cannabis, said Dale Jones,

chairwoman of the Coalition for Cannabis Policy Reform. She said the group has been collecting polling data in preparation for an initiative of its own.

"We asked for a tremendous amount of feedback," she said, explaining that many people were apathetic about Prop. 19 because they believed federal intervention would have been inevitable. She also said the campaign was significantly hurt because it didn't have have the full backing of the medical cannabis community.

The Regulate Marijuana Like Wine Act prohibits commercial advertising for the sale or use of marijuana, but exempts medical cannabis. And the initiative explicitly states that it would “not repeal, modify, or change” Prop. 215 or any related laws.

“We’re not touching anything that goes on with medical,” Kubby said. “That stays the way it is. We don’t touch that. If it’s a medical grow and they sell to a dispensary, that’s outside of our initiative.”

Jones said the Prop. 19 campaign tried similar tactics but was unsuccessful. She said there is a common fear among medical cannabis dispensary owners and the people who grow for them that legalization would hurt their business.

"We did have some (medical cannabis) growers that understood that their profit margin wasn't worth putting people in prison, but I don’t know if we will ever get them all," she said. "I’d rather focus on getting the mainstream voters. The growers could vote yes, go legit, continue to make a living, and also pay a little more in taxes for their kids' public education."

Gray also sees the challenge of getting the medical cannabis community's vote. But he said he thinks the initiative can win without their support.

"Yes, some people presently in the medical marijuana dispensary business will vote against our initiative because they want to protect their market share," he said. "And from an economic standpoint, they may be right. But the vast number of people who are involved in this, from a patient standpoint, from a law enforcement standpoint, from a parental standpoint, they will see the benefits from the strictly regulated sale of marijuana. And they will vote for this if we do our jobs right.”

Resourced: Californiawatch.org Written By: Joshua Emerson Smith Published: August 5, 2011

Original Article

[braatah-blog]

MJ Street Fair Fuels Debate Over Legalization

Standing outside a medical marijuana dispensary in southern California, Lucy Baldwin muses on one of the great social and political debates here.

“I thought the threat of marijuana acceptance in California was over with the defeat of Prop. 19, but now it seems to be back,” says the single mother of two teens. “I think it’s a bad idea for grownups to be modeling behavior that is ultimately very detrimental to youth. It leads them in the wrong direction.”

Morgan Fox, communications director for the Marijuana Policy Project, holds an opposite opinion.

“When we stop blowing it out of proportion as a society and learn to deal with this commonly used substance in a calm and reasonable manner, we see that the sky does not fall and life goes on as before,” he says.

The two comments frame a debate that is being fueled by the International Cannabis & Hemp Expo outside Oakland City Hall this weekend – a five-block street fair including music, booths, hundreds of vendors, and a designated area where medical marijuana cardholders can light up weed.

Once projected to win by a large margin, California’s Proposition 19 – which would have allowed local governments to regulate and tax the legal sale of marijuana – was narrowly defeated last November (54-47 percent).

But proponents say public attitudes have been changing for several years and that the expo is the latest evidence.

Although some local residents are against the idea, marijuana advocates say the event is no big deal because it was held at Oakland’s Cow Palace two years in a row and is moving to the street simply because of a state moratorium on drug use inside state facilities.

“Events such as this are not new in California and elsewhere. This seems like it is simply the first one to be held in the street,” says Fox. “Providing medical marijuana patients with a place to use their medicine privately and away from minors, while still enjoying a public festival or other event, is a considerate and rational course of action.”

Pro-marijuana forces are seizing the opportunity to repeat their selling points from the initiative battle – that far from leading kids astray, legalization would improve the quality and safety of the product while providing income for law enforcement.

“The fact that Oakland officials seem eager to hold this event on city property shows just how much legalizing and regulating the cannabis industry has benefited the city,” says Tom Angell, media relations director for Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, a Massachusetts organization that describes itself as “made up of current and former members of the law enforcement and criminal justice communities who are speaking out about the failures of our existing drug policies.”

“Bringing the marijuana trade above-ground not only allows the city to take in much-needed tax revenue it otherwise wouldn’t have,” Angell says, “but it reduces crime and violence by putting the street gangs who would otherwise sell marijuana to people who want it out of business.”

To Lucy Baldwin, those arguments are simply the nose of a nice-looking camel nudging its way into her tent.

First came California’s Prop. 215, the 1996 ballot initiative that legalized personal use of medical marijuana for those who had doctor’s prescriptions. That was followed by the proliferation of dispensaries which, she says, legitimized people who were only thinly-veiled drug dealers and who sold drugs too close to schools, playgrounds, and churches.

Oakland’s Oaksterdam University opened in November 2007 to offer training for the cannabis industry with a stated mission to “legitimize the business and work to change the law to make cannabis legal.” It has graduated over 8,000 students. Campuses have since opened in Los Angeles, Sebastopol, and Michigan.

Since expo organizers are selling the $20 tickets to adults only and limiting entry points, they expect only about 20,000 people to attend. But Baldwin says the speakers, vendors, booths – and pot smell – will be in everybody’s face.

“Kids will look over and see what’s going on and will wonder why it’s so exclusive and that will make it cool to them,” she says. “We don’t need this.”

But marijuana advocates point to several polls over the past 10 years that show public resistance to marijuana is dying out in several parts of the country. That has come with the high financial cost of fighting the drug war and the high social cost of locking up thousands of people when regulating it could provide revenues to economically-strapped law enforcement agencies.

“Events such as this reflect the reality that despite 70-plus years of federal prohibition, cannabis culture is not only surviving but thriving,” says Paul Armentano, deputy director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), also on the faculty of Oaksterdam, in an email.

“Oakland voters and city officials have consistently voiced their support for marijuana legalization and regulation, as is evident by their willingness to embrace this event,” he says. “It makes no sense for the federal government to continue to cling to a policy that improperly classifies the tens of thousands of people attending this weekend’s event as criminals who deserve to be arrested, prosecuted, and incarcerated for their use of a substance that is objectively safer than either alcohol or tobacco.”

Source: Christian Science Monitor (US) Author: Daniel B. Wood, Staff Writer Published: September 3, 2011 Copyright: 2011 The Christian Science Publishing Society Contact: [email protected] Website: http://www.csmonitor.com/

Original Article

[jpapers-blog]

If you have an extra five minutes you should take the time to read this. It's about legalizing Marijuana in the states. They talk a lot about the most recent finding of a 300 acre plantation found in Baja, Mexico, and how we're 1. Supplying Mexican drug dealers with money, 2. Enabling violence through keeping ties with these Mexican cartels in order to get weed, and 3. How a vote to legalize marijuana in Colorado (or could have been California) may be the vote that changes drug policies worldwide - for the better.

In the article they mention

"Consequently, soldiers in Mexico happily burn marijuana plantations in front of the cameras every week and still stay sober enough to shoot back at irate gangsters."

Which I see as quite the contradiction considering they go on to say

However, Calderón stands firmly against legalization, saying it would make more kids get high and commit crime.

Doesn't the previous statement imply that since they aren't high they have the ability to shoot back at gangsters? But then this man goes on to say that it would make people commit more crimes? Sounds like typical, uneducated propaganda speaking out - the entire reason that marijuana is illegal anyway; uneducated propaganda created to strike fear in those who are either already against it or are unbiased but looking to the government for help in making their decisions. 

Read over this, and then get out today and support Proposition 19 in NE. And make sure you watch the events if you can't make it today. We have until July 6, 2012 to collect as many signatures as possible.

Sure, we all think it's not going to matter in NE since it's such a conservative state, but we can do this. All it takes is a signature, and a few seconds to tell your friends. Let's start something bigger than ourselves.

[glitterricky-blog]

But it helps people bottom and eat like a borderline plus size model!

[liamdevine]

(Don't Fear) The Reefer.

[that301boy-blog]

[holyfauk-blog]

Why was Proposition 19 not passed??

it would allow people 21 and older to cultivate up to 25 square feet of marijuana and carry up to 1 ounce of marijuana for personal use at nonpublic locations. The state would regulate businesses selling marijuana and collect fees and taxes the way it does for cigarettes and alcohol.