MARIJUANA MEASURE GOES UP IN SMOKE

For some California residents, The Man has once again reared his ugly
head.

By a convincing eight-point margin, voters in the Golden State
rejected a measure last week that would have allowed adults aged 21 or
older to grow and possess small amounts of marijuana. It failed in
every demographic category except for voters under 30.

California was first out of the box legalizing the use of medical
marijuana in 1996, and 13 states have followed in its wake. If voters
had approved last week's proposal, it's probably inevitable that it
would have ended up on the ballot in other states in 2012 and beyond.

The failure of the measure provokes mixed feelings. Opponents made
compelling arguments that the more widespread availability of
marijuana would have had potentially harmful social effects, such as
more drivers getting behind the wheel while stoned, and workers
punching in while zoned out and glassy-eyed, and doing so with impunity.

Roger Salazar, a spokesman for a group that opposed marijuana
legalization in California, told the Associated Press: "The risks of
legalizing something as important as marijuana were far greater than
the potential benefits, and the benefits were far from guaranteed."
On the other hand, there's no denying that marijuana use is already
about as common as people driving five or 10 miles over the speed
limit, and no one is reaping any tax benefit from its unregulated
sale. Meanwhile, untold millions of tax dollars have been spent to
arrest sellers and users over the last 50 years or so, and it's
hardly prevented anyone from lighting up. It's often seemed that
outlawing marijuana has been as fruitless as Prohibition was in the 1920s.

And then there's the study that was just published in the medical
journal The Lancet that found alcohol and tobacco, both of which are
legal and regulated, have far more detrimental impacts across society,
from mortality to crime, than marijuana does.

Given the support the marijuana legalization measure had among young
people in California, it seems likely it will be back. Maybe next
time, proponents will better be able to outline how the advantages
will outweigh the disadvantages.