Californians to Vote on Legalization of Non-Medicinal Marijuana
Californians to Vote on
Legalization of Non-Medicinal Marijuana
Many
supporters of legalizing pot acknowledge that the drug does
have negative effects on health. Their argument concerns the
hypocrisy of keeping alcohol, which has well-documented links
to fatal car crashes and a host of detrimental health problems,
legal while having pot is a crime. The alcohol industry has
contributed heavily to anti-Prop 19 campaigns, no doubt from
fears that legal weed would cut into sales of beer, wine, and
liquor.
California became the first state to
legalize the medicinal use of marijuana in 1996. Since then,
13 states have followed suit. Next month, Californians will
vote on Prop 19: the Regulate, Control, and Tax Cannabis Act
of 2010. If passed, the bill would make California the first
state to legalize the recreational use of marijuana. The bill
will also allow financially struggling communities to tax the
drug.
While
legalization of a drug listed on the FDA's Schedule I may
sound like a radical measure to most of the country, a recent
poll conducted by the Public Policy Institute of California
found that 52 percent of likely voters support Prop 19, while
just 41 percent oppose it. The proposed legislation is
polling higher than Senator Barbara Boxer or either
gubernatorial candidate, Jerry Brown or Meg Whitman. It has
even garnered the support of one of the state's more powerful
unions, the Service Employees International
Union.
If
voters turn down Prop 19, there is not much punch to
California marijuana laws, anyway. The state essentially
decriminalized possession of the drug over three decades ago,
making it a misdemeanor that carries a small fine akin to
public intoxication. Then last week Governor Schwarzenegger
decriminalized it even further, downgrading possession of
under an ounce of marijuana to an infraction, akin to
receiving a traffic ticket.
Colorado may follow suit in 2012.
There is already a group laying down the ground work for a
Prop 19-like referendum to appear on the ballot in that year.
And a recent poll showed that 49 percent of the state's
resident would support legalization and taxation of pot while
just 39 percent would oppose it. The chief cause for the
movement towards legalization of weed is economic. A recent
study conducted by the libertarian Cato Institute found that
allowing cannabis to be a regulated commodity could generate
$8.7 billion in tax revenue annually while saving about the
same amount in law enforcement budgets.
A
number of civil rights group have announced support for Prop
19, such as the National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People (NAACP) and the Latino Voters
League.
The
main factor for growing support for marijuana legalization,
insiders say, is on overall change in attitude. People are
simply becoming more skeptical of the long-held belief
that pot is a gateway drug and users inevitably graduate to
harder, more dangerous drugs. A study published in the
“Journal of Health and Social Behavior” last month found that
life factors such as stress and job status were more reliable
predictors of whether teenagers would use hard drugs than was
previous marijuana use.
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