DEDICATED POT CRUSADERS ALREADY LICKING THEIR CHOPS FOR THE NEXT
OPPORTUNITY TO LEGALIZE

California's Pot-Legalization Initiative Went Down to Defeat Last
Night, but 46 Percent of the Vote Tells Advocates Like Richard Lee
That the Future Is Bright.

OAKLAND--California's pot-legalization initiative went down to defeat
last night, but supporters say it came close enough to try again.

The Proposition 19 ballot initiative won 46 percent of the vote. It
would have regulated and taxed marijuana under rules similar to those
for alcohol, albeit with a lot more dry counties and odd blue laws.

Ironically, the proposal failed to carry the "Emerald Triangle" of
Humboldt and Mendocino counties, the state's most fabled ganja-growing
region. Prop 19 got only 47 percent there, according to
"semi-official" returns posted on-line by California's Secretary of
State.

Supporters claimed a moral victory and a tactical advance. The vote,
they said, was close enough to put marijuana legalization on the
national map as an issue to be taken seriously.

"It's not a debate about if or when. It's a debate about how," said
Prop 19 "coproponent" Jeff Jones, a longtime medical-marijuana
activist. Jones' Oakland cannabis dispensary was the plaintiff in the
Supreme Court's first medical-marijuana case.

"It hurts, but no matter what, it's a victory," said Danielle
Schumacher, 28, a volunteer from Berkeley. ""We got a big percentage
of the vote, and that's something to build on."

"The more we talk about it, we win," said Aaron Houston of Students
for a Sensible Drug Policy, which organized scores of volunteers for
the initiative. "We've had 40 years of Reefer Madness propaganda
that's said it's not OK to talk about it. That's what changed this
fall."

The proposal won almost two-thirds of the vote in San Francisco, and
also carried Oakland and most of the Bay Area. It lost badly in the
Central Valley, getting only 37 percent in Fresno, and it did only a
few points better in the "Inland Empire" east of Los Angeles.

"It was an uphill battle in an off-year election; with an older,
smaller, and more conservative electorate, it's a hostile environment
for marijuana-law reform," said Stephen Gutwillig of the Drug Policy
Alliance's Los Angeles office.

If the initiative had passed, cannabis users, growers, and dealers
would still have been vulnerable under federal law. U.S. Attorney
General Eric Holder announced in late October that the federal
government would continue to enforce laws against sale, cultivation,
and possession. The measure began to slip in the polls after that, and
some activists call Holder's announcement a turning point.

The Leaders

Seeded by a $1.4 million contribution from Oakland medical-marijuana
magnate Richard Lee, the initiative was opposed by most of the state's
political establishment, but it drew a dedicated volunteer force and a
coalition that activists called "unprecedented." On Election Day,
volunteers at Yes on 19's Oakland office made more than 50,000
get-out-the-vote calls.

Prohibition endorsers included governor-elect Jerry Brown and his
Republican opponent, Meg Whitman; the state Chamber of Commerce; the
state associations of prosecutors, police chiefs, sheriffs, and
narcotics officers; and both candidates for California attorney general.

People in the cannabis world say a victory for the Republican
attorney-general candidate, Los Angeles prosecutor Steve Cooley, would
do more damage than Prop 19's loss. Cooley has argued that the state's
medical-marijuana law does not permit sale, and threatened to close
every medical-pot dispensary in the state. He narrowly trailed
Democrat Kamala Harris as of noon Wednesday.

Prop 19 also "forged an unprecedented coalition for marijuana-law
reform," says Stephen Gutwilliger. It won endorsements from groups
outside the cannabis-culture and drug-policy worlds. It was backed by
the state branches of the NAACP, the Latino Voters League, the Service
Employees International Union, the Northern California district of the
International Longshore and Warehouse Union, and the United Food and
Commercial Workers Local 5.

"We've never been in rooms with union leaders, with minorities, with
Democrats," said Allen St. Pierre of the National Organization for the
Reform of Marijuana Laws. "In 1996, we were trying to convince the
country that medical marijuana wasn't a farce."

The UFCW began backing the initiative in earnest after workers at
Oakland's medical-marijuana dispensaries joined the union earlier this
year. Legal marijuana might bring "60,000, 70,000, 80,000 sustainable,
single-earner jobs to California," says Dan Rush, Local 5's
special-operations director. "It's a growth industry for my union for
the next ten years."

The jobs pay well, he says--up to $35 an hour with benefits---so
legalization is also about "bringing dignity to the industry," he
adds, treating cannabis retail or agricultural workers like they're
meatcutters or grocery-store workers instead of like drug dealers.

Opposition Within the Ranks

A surprising amount of opposition came from pot-smokers
themselves---its significance conceivably shown by the results in
Humboldt and Mendocino counties, where cannabis farming is a mainstay
of the economy. Many growers fear that legalization would make prices
drop so low that it would slash their income, or that big corporations
would squeeze them out.

"It'll exclude us little guys," said an East Bay grower. He said the
semi-legal status of medical marijuana has stabilized the market, and
he doesn't want to mess things up.

"There are mixed feelings within the industry," said one of his
companions, another grower. Indoor growers might be able to find a
market for high-quality herb similar to that for microbrewery beer,
but he also feared a "green rush" of new growers who would flood the
market with mediocre herb and bring prices down too low for farmers to
make a living.

Other stoner opponents said that anyone who really needs cannabis can
get a medical-use certificate.

Still, voting against legalizing marijuana because you yourself are
relatively safe might seem to be an extraordinarily hypocritical act
for a pot-smoker---or conceivably racist, as recently released studies
by the Drug Policy Alliance have found dramatically higher arrest
rates for pot possession among black and Latino people in California,
especially young men.

"The growers (mostly all white) never talk about the War on Drugs and
all the youth of color rotting behind bars in California and
everywhere for small amounts of marijuana!" said a disgruntled
hippie-era Mendocino County grower before the election.

Others objected to the age restrictions in the proposal. It would have
set a smoking age of 21, and increased penalties for a person over 21
providing non-medical pot to someone under 18.

There were also plenty of conspiracy theories floating around
California's cannabis world. Philip Morris and/or R.J. Reynolds had
bought 200,000 acres of foreclosed property up north, waiting for the
day they could bulldoze into the marijuana market. Monsanto was
waiting in the wings with ganja genetically engineered to be
ultra-potent. Billionaire George Soros, who contributed $1 million to
the initiative, was using Richard Lee to corner the market.

"If you can have it, why are you fighting so hard for other people to
have it?" shouted Bill Benjamin, 28, of Oakland, one of a knot of men
loudly picketing Oaksterdam University, Lee's "cultivation college,"
on Election Day. Most wore crudely printed "No on 19" T-shirts and
claimed to be irate medical users.

"I have nephews in high school, and they don't need to be smoking that
shit," said another protester.

Benjamin, who said he uses marijuana medically for insomnia, said he
opposes changing the law because "recreational users already go to
jail" and risking that is their choice. He also argued that if pot
were legal, billionaires would buy out everyone else in the business.

"Marlboro's not going to grow medical marijuana or marijuana, because
it's still federally illegal," responded Jeff Jones when they
confronted him. He dismissed the protesters as "ignorant, like Tea
Partiers."

Others see a more sinister hand at work. Enraged monologues about
impractically omnipotent corporate conspiracies aren't rare in the
weed world, a persecuted subculture that can be somewhere between
isolated and secretive and has plenty of urban legends. But
belligerent rants in the phraseology of prohibitionist talking points,
instant-scruff two-week beards, and crudely trying to pick fights with
activists by calling them "faggots" remarkably resemble the tactics
used by Vietnam-era agent provocateurs.

The Future

"We're gonna be back in 2012," Jeff Jones said at Yes on 19's
closing-night gathering in Oakland, speaking on video to the press and
lower-level volunteers out in the parking lot.

Was the off-year campaign premature? Maybe, said Dale Gieringer of
California NORML two days before the vote, but "we're finally looking
at the only thing that solves the problem of marijuana
prohibition."

The odds are good for a 2012 campaign that has more resources and has
learned from this year's mistakes. Some groups may try California
again. Others are looking at Washington, Oregon, Colorado, Nevada, and
Alaska, which have all voted for initiatives to legalize medical
marijuana. Revised versions might try to mollify intra-movement
critics by including protections for small farmers and establishing a
clear statewide regulatory system instead of a patchwork of local options.

It was "absolutely" better to have the vote now rather than wait,
Aaron Houston said after the returns came in. "We have to have this
conversation. Thirty thousand people have died south of the border."