California's Proposition 19

[Rakhmetov]

A chain reaction of falling dominoes is coming with cannabis legalization. State after state will be forced to legalize it. It's like during the Great Depression when alcohol was legalized after 13 years of prohibition due to the economic crisis. If you live in California vote yes on Proposition 19.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proposition_19

[Rusty Shackleford]

A chain reaction of falling dominoes is coming with cannabis legalization. State after state will be forced to legalize it. It's like during the Great Depression when alcohol was legalized after 13 years of prohibition due to the economic crisis. If you live in California vote yes on Proposition 19.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proposition_19

PFPs Prop position

• Proposition 18: Water bonds - withdrawn by the Legislature
• Proposition 19: Legalizes marijuana - YES
• Proposition 20: Congressional redistricting - NO
• Proposition 21: Vehicle license fee - YES
• Proposition 22: Transportation & local government funding - NO
• Proposition 23: Suspends pollution controls - NO
• Proposition 24: Repeals business tax breaks - YES
• Proposition 25: Majority vote on budgets - YES
• Proposition 26: Two-thirds vote on fees - NO
• Proposition 27: Repeals redistricting commission - NO

[Magón]

It's funny, because here in California there's been a lot of news (at least where I am,) about how lots of people want Marijuana legalized, etc. but they're not the people you'd think. Lots of people who want it legalized are people who don't actually smoke it for medical or recreational purposes. Those who do use it for recreational purposes though, don't want it legalized because it just makes it all that much more of a serious commodity, and some other mumbo jumbo I heard on the local Free Radio Station. And they're pretty up on the latest when it comes to these things; and accurate too.

[Chicano Shamrock]

I don't know what you mean by "serious comodity" but if you mean it will cost more than I don't think that is correct. As it is marijuana is pretty much legal in California. You just need to go to a doctor that will give you a recommendation. The dispensaries have major deals and kick backs unlike street vendors.

[Animal Farm Pig]

PFPs Prop position

I like all of the PFP positions (I think I'm actually registered PFP), except on 21:

Peace and Freedom Party Position
This proposition adds an $18 fee to most vehicle registrations that will go directly to California’s 278 parks, and eliminate the vehicle entrance fee. We would prefer to tax the wealthy and their corporations. But we all need our parks to preserve the environment and help us enjoy it. We accept the cost of a half a tank of gas per year as a toll on the road to a more equitable future.

In California, working people are getting nickel-and-dimed with new and increasing fees. The fees are actually regressive taxes affecting working people more than the rich. PFP is willing to trade another regressive tax for running parks, and I'm just not willing to compromise on it.

[Rusty Shackleford]

Thats why we need something like AB 656 up in that shit.

[Salyut]

Isn't it just barely keeping above the 'no' votes at the moment?

[Animal Farm Pig]

Thats why we need something like AB 656 up in that shit.

Just read a summary of AB656-- looks good. It's much better to pay for any state service through progressive taxation and taxation of business than through the fee system.

To be honest, I'm fed up with California. I'm leaving in December. I'll deal more with some of the reasons in that California thread in Chit-Chat.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I'm in favor of decriminalization and legalization for a variety of reasons and I'll vote for this proposition but I'm not really convinced it will prevail and I think we can blame Obama for it if it does fail.

I think that first, the demoralization of all the Obama supporters means that this election will see the lowest turn-out of liberals and young people in a while. Also the way the campaign has been run is really appealing to right-wing Libertarian reasons to decriminalize... less work for cops, more tax revenue. I think this is on purpose and designed to limit opening up the can of worms that is US drug policy and the prison and court system.

I'd much rather see this as a campaign to begin to take on the insane prison system and they way drug laws are used to profile and harass minorities and youth - but without a broader movement around these things, I'm not surprised that this campaign reflects pro-law and order and conservative "pro-legalization" arguments.

If it passes, fine, I'd love to smoke freely at concerts and before heading into a museum or movie theater. But if it doesn't I won't be surprised because this campaign didn't learn the lessons of the anti-prop 8 campaign: if you are apologetic and conservative in your position, then the conservatives have an opening to win.

[Rusty Shackleford]

personally im pretty much pro-legalization but im not going to make that the center of my action, by a long shot.

focusing too much on drug culture will turn the already weakened left into a bunch of yippies.

if it gets legalized, yay. if it doesnt, oh well.

im not 21 anyways...

[Jimmie Higgins]

personally im pretty much pro-legalization but im not going to make that the center of my action, by a long shot.

focusing too much on drug culture will turn the already weakened left into a bunch of yippies.

if it gets legalized, yay. if it doesnt, oh well.

im not 21 anyways...

Jerry Rubin (Yippie) said that pot is communism in drug form: once you have a surplus of weed, all you want to do is go around giving it to people.

None of that is true of course - it's a crude understanding of "communism" (i.e. "share everything and give things to people") and there are plenty of pro-pot libertarians who never pass the shit!

I agree it shouldn't be our main focus, but mostly because there is no political movement around it - it's a moral movement and a movement of petty-bourgeois people who want to farm or distribute it (the proposition is being sponsored in part by groups like Oaksterdam University here in Oakland who have business courses in marijuana entrepreneurship and try to make alliances with local police departments). But at some point, the contradictions of the prison system and the "war on drugs" and police and so on will cause some kind of movement that actually does take on working class issues like incarceration, criminalization of addicts, racial profiling of minorities (all a cop has to do is say that the car full of teens they pulled over looked like they were smoking something), and so on. When that happens, we shouldn't hesitate to jump on that like a hippie in Birkenstocks.

[Magón]

I don't know what you mean by "serious comodity" but if you mean it will cost more than I don't think that is correct. As it is marijuana is pretty much legal in California. You just need to go to a doctor that will give you a recommendation. The dispensaries have major deals and kick backs unlike street vendors.

By "serious commodity" I mean something people will want more than now, something that will become more and more demanded. At least, that's what all the street vendors are worried about, because it'll take away from their business if there's things the State can do to keep people from going to someone else who today would be arrested. (Like the kick backs you mentioned.) That's what I mean by serious commodity. The rest I already know, and have had friends who've tried to get a prescription by a doctor when there's nothing wrong with them. It doesn't work... at least as far as I know.

[Jimmie Higgins]

By "serious commodity" I mean something people will want more than now, something that will become more and more demanded. At least, that's what all the street vendors are worried about, because it'll take away from their business if there's things the State can do to keep people from going to someone else who today would be arrested. (Like the kick backs you mentioned.) That's what I mean by serious commodity. The rest I already know, and have had friends who've tried to get a prescription by a doctor when there's nothing wrong with them. It doesn't work... at least as far as I know.

In Oakland there are semi-legal speakeasys because they passed a law saying that cops wouldn't enforce laws around small quantities of pot. I know someone who knows someone who runs one and this semi-legal street entrepenuer is the classic example of petty-bourgeois thinking and mixed consciousness - totally down and radical on one thing, and 30 seconds later he's spouting totally reactionary bullshit. Anyway, he was all up in arms because the Oakland City Council tried to vote on a measure to centralize pot growing in large warehouses and re-illegalizing induvidual home-growers.

Also in Northern California, all the illegal growers are also against legalization because they fear that big growers will take them over - or at least they'd have to grow under regulated conditions rather than under moonshine conditions.

IMO these are not good reasons to keep crazy laws alive. It's essentially like small business men being angry at Wal-Mart - sure you can stop Wal-Mart, but if you keep capitalism and selling goods for profit then some other mom and pop will eventually become the new Wal-Mart. Illegal growing or illegal moonshining or making meth may be things that poor people do to survive and make money right now, but it's no cure for poverty and it's just sad that people have to do that and endanger themselves and others or risk jail because of the decay we have to live with as workers inside the wealthiest country with the wealthiest bosses.

This is the problem with this Libertarian approach to the decriminalization of drugs it divorces the "drug problem" from the way the "drug war" actually functions in this society. Pot isn't illegal because the state has our best interest at heart or is just misguided or is influenced by archaic attitudes about drugs. Drugs are illegal not by accident but because it serves various functions for the ruling class in this society: scapegoat for poverty (you're poor because you're lazy and stoned/drunk/an addict) - it gives an excuse to build up the repressive apparatus of prisons and police - it divides people and makes workers blame drug-addicted/selling/using workers for social problems rather than the system or lack of jobs or whatnot. This is why the ruling class has clung to demonizing pot for 40 years after it became widely accepted in many areas and even across class lines.

[syndicat]

Legalization would be likely to lower the price and increase competition among growers and dealers. I think this is why current growers and dealers would be against this proposition. But that is a narrow self-centered viewpoint. Laws against marijuana use are a main prop of mass incarceration.