YES ON WEED, NO ON 19

(Nov. 11, 2010) "Don't stop believin'" was the message from Prop. 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 Prop. 19 is widely considered to
have elevated the discussion about the nation's drug war to
unprecedented levels, Lee said.

"The fact that millions of Californians voted to legalize marijuana is
a tremendous victory," Lee 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 Prop. 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 of
2,200 precincts Tuesday found just 10 percent of voters considered
Prop. 19 their number one issue. Paid for by the Los Angeles Times,
the Edison poll showed half of voters thought the governor's race was
the main event. Even among young voters, Prop. 19 came in third in
importance.

Yes on 19 had 219,000 Facebook fans, compared with No on 19's 1,000,
but it didn't translate into enough votes. Campaign headquarters made
56,000 calls Tuesday, but lacked that energy several weeks back as the
deadline to register to vote passed. I interviewed young smokers who
supported Prop. 19 but never registered. Another young smoker said he
would have voted yes, but failed to register absentee and vote before
a planned trip overseas. And young voters aren't a monolithic block.
The Bay Citizenfilmed conservatives and contrarians at UC Berkeley who
were voting against the measure.

Prop. 19 didn't raise much money. It was an outsider campaign that
shot for $15 million and got less than $5 million. Arguably, if Tax &
Regulate got the 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 hardline Democrats
could agree upon.

"Its 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 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 was a bad
law that 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 detente 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
initiative measures related to prohibition, drugs and alcohol
circulated. Only 20 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 19 the spirit of the initiative was
embraced from blue county to red. Ten cities passed 11 tax measures on
medical marijuana. Berkeley added six historic cultivation licenses.
In conservative Sacramento, a medical cannabis taxation measure passed
soundly with 70 percent of the vote. Measure U in San Jose, another
cannabis tax, passed 78 to 21. Bans on dispensaries in Santa Barbara
and Morro Bay went down in defeat. As the Associated Press has
reported, medical cannabis is all but a fig leaf over a tumescent
cannabis culture that is only getting bigger.

David Downs writes the Legalization Nation column for the East Bay
Express.