WHY LEGALIZATION FAILED

Proposition 19 loss stems from apathy, funding, fear, and loathing.

Don't stop believin'" was the message from Proposition 19 creator
Richard Lee of Oakland after the initiative to tax and regulate pot
lost by around 540,000 votes, 46 percent to 53 percent last Tuesday
night. About 3.3 million Californians voted for the measure, and 3.9
million didn't. But Lee said Prop 19 elevated the discussion about
the nation's drug war to unprecedented levels.

"The fact that millions of Californians voted to legalize marijuana
is a tremendous victory," he said. "We have broken the glass ceiling.
Prop 19 has changed the terms of the debate. And that was a major
strategic goal." A Newsweek study found more than 1,800 articles on
the measure, a 50 percent increase over coverage of Proposition 215 in 1996.

Prop 19's lack of votes can be attributed to: youth voter apathy,
funding problems, and a powerful attack from both the left and the
right, among other factors. An exit poll done by Edison Research at
2,200 precincts Tuesday found that just 10 percent of voters
considered Prop 19 their number one issue. Even among young voters,
Prop 19 came in third in importance.

Yes on 19 had 219,000 Facebook fans to 1,000 fans of No on 19, but
that didn't translate into enough votes. Campaign headquarters made
56,000 calls Tuesday, but lacked that energy several weeks earlier
when the deadline to register to vote passed. Legalization Nation
interviewed young smokers who supported Prop 19, but never
registered. And young voters aren't a monolithic block. The Bay
Citizen filmed conservatives and contrarians at UC Berkeley who were
voting against the measure.

Prop 19 didn't raise much money, either. It was an outsider campaign
that shot for $15 million and got less than $5 million. Arguably, if
the Regulate, Control & Tax Cannabis Act got more money, it could've
bought votes through advertising. But using Meg Whitman's
dollars-for-votes campaign as a benchmark, Prop 19 would have needed
about $25 million total.

The Obama administration is also bound by federal law and
international treaty to fight legalization. Three weeks before the
election, US Attorney General Eric Holder said he would "vigorously
enforce" federal law in California if Prop 19 passed. He was joined
in opposition by Jerry Brown, Meg Whitman, Barbara Boxer, Dianne
Feinstein, Nancy Pelosi, both attorney general candidates, the
Chamber of Commerce, the police lobby, and fundamentalist Christians
who banned gay marriage via Prop 8. Defeating Prop 19 was probably
the one thing in the 2010 election that the Tea Party and hard-line
Democrats could agree upon. "It's utterly shameful this president and
this administration chose to stick to the old line and it is
something that they will come to regret," said campaigner James Anthony.

Prop 19 also faced a significant backlash from its own flanks in the
radical drug reform community. The so-called "Stoners Against
Legalization" were a minority of a minority, but a vocal one. They
said Prop 19 didn't go far enough and viewed it through a lens of
vehement anti-capitalism. It did not carry the growing communities in
the Emerald Triangle.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger also threw a curve ball at the end of
the campaign when he signed a bill making personal possession of
marijuana an infraction "" equivalent to a speeding ticket. The
governor's signature amplified the popular idea that pot is already
pretty much legal in California. The awkward medical cannabis
industry has emerged as a state of dA(c)tente between warriors and
reformers. Citizens apparently feel comfortable giving speeding
tickets to recreational smokers, but jail time to their suppliers and
growers, who are often minorities. More than 14,000 Californians were
arrested for cannabis sales in 2007, and they face prison for repeat counts.

Prop 19 had always faced long odds. In the 20th century, 73 measures
related to prohibition, drugs, and alcohol circulated. Only twenty
qualified for the ballot and just five were approved by voters. The
last time pot legalization appeared on the ballot was in 1972 when it
was defeated 33-66. Medical cannabis passed soundly in 1996, 55-44.
So did rehab-not-jail measure Prop 36 in 2000, 60-39. But further
decriminalization efforts in 2008 under Prop 5 failed, 59-40.

On a larger level, Prop 19 tried and failed to use the window of
opportunity created by the immense economic hole the state has dug
for itself. The Depression helped end alcohol prohibition, but the
Great Recession failed to stop the war on pot. Californians say they
feel strapped, but even under a World War's worth of debt, they've
proven willing to spend $1 billion a year enforcing unenforceable pot laws.

Even though California rejected the statewide tax and regulate
measure, the spirit of the initiative was embraced from blue county
to red. Ten cities passed eleven tax measures on medical marijuana.
Berkeley added six historic cultivation licenses. In conservative
Sacramento, a medical cannabis taxation Measure C passed soundly with
70 percent of the vote. And Measure U in San Jose, another tax on
cannabis measure, passed 78 to 21. Bans on dispensaries in Santa
Barbara and Morro Bay went down in defeat. The Associated Press has
reported medical cannabis is all but a fig leaf over a tumescent
cannabis culture that is only getting bigger.