California will vote on legal marijuana

"The stakes are arguably even higher in California, where election officials last night confirmed that the Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010 will appear on the November ballot."

http://blog.norml.org/2010/03/25/this-november-is-going-to-be-very-very-interesting/

any voting age cali wattmers had better help with this. or else i will break all your afx cds. and boc!

  On 3/30/2010 at 5:10 PM, Hanratty said:

or else i will break all your afx cds. and boc!

lol

I would vote for it if I could. And this would make for a great video campaign

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKAURFR2a2E

rofl

no way this is going to happen

if it does i'm moving to CA tho!

jazz, but yeah, word up cali, make us proud!

My prediction: it passes, but something gets in the way. Feds will jump in most likely, as this would be massively destabilizing for the enforcement of marijuana laws not only for California's neighbors, but for every state in the country.

  On 3/30/2010 at 5:16 PM, Al Hounos said:

jazz, but yeah, word up cali, make us proud!

 

My prediction: it passes, but something gets in the way. Feds will jump in most likely, as this would be massively destabilizing for the enforcement of marijuana laws not only for California's neighbors, but for every state in the country.

i had a feeling this news made it to watmm. it's been brewing for months. but i didnt see it and it cant hurt to spread the word a little more. the only way this can happen is if there is a really strong grass roots demand combined with a crippling economic crisis. what we need to do is distract all the naysayers with an abortion campaign so they will forget to vote against the MJ bill.

I saw this on the shroomery a while ago, great news eh? I doubt it will get voted in on this particular bill, however the momentum for pot legalization has definitely become exponentially stronger in the past few years. If not this time, DEFINITELY within our lifetime. If not I'll eat my shoe. Seriously, if any of you still know my when I'm on my death bed and pot isn't legal hand me my shoe and I'll fucking eat it.

damn, i kinda wish i wasn't in korea so i could smoke some weed right now

Regulate it!

But guys, wait til the conservative-think-of-the-chilluns ads start up before you get too excited. Californians are easily swayed by conservative-think-of-the-chilluns ads, especially if they're really fucking illogical.

And Big Beer (Anheuser Busch, etc)are going to pour money in to resist the everliving fuck out of this.

And, yeah, this conflicts with Federal drug enforcement schemes, so you'll still have to deal with those.

Why would it be unbelievable when it's basically legal there already, and a handful of other states (Some of them less liberal) have already done it.

other states have voted on legalization?

  On 3/30/2010 at 7:07 PM, Glass Plate said:

Why would it be unbelievable when it's basically legal there already, and a handful of other states (Some of them less liberal) have already done it.

It's definitely not basically legal here.

no other states have legalized it.

it's been decriminalized in a few, but that's about it. however - there seems to have been an rather effective erosion of the underpinnings of marijuana laws over the last couple of decades. medical marijuana is available in 14 states now... not just california, and it's decriminalized even in places like massachusetts, which has some of the strictest liquor laws in the country.

public opinion seems to be softening on it as well - it doesn't hurt that movies like 'pineapple express' can get away with such pro-marijuana content in such a mainstream way (vs. the cult-like status of the cheech & chong films, etc.)

i wonder how well it will do, given the fact that apparently getting a "yes on" prop passed is difficult, no matter the content... and some of the aforementioned difficulties like the goddamn "ahhhh babies babies children aaaah!" contingent and the tobacco and alcohol camps.

federally i wonder too - i get the feeling this would more likely be quietly absorbed and set a precedent than see a lot of pushback from the DEA, given recent activities by o'bammy's legislizzle.

guess we'll see. supposed to be a rather hefty campaign for this. should be entertaining.

if it doesn't happen now, it will happen in the next 5 years. You guys have ridiculously high approval rates and they rise every year.

i don't see how it could be much more legal than it currently is in Colorado. i was there recently and they've all gone completely weed crazy. $100 gets you a license to buy it from a shop whenever you want/grow it yourself.

  On 3/30/2010 at 7:33 PM, baph said:

It's definitely not basically legal here.

i would kind of argue that it is... basically absolutely anyone with an ounce of effort and $30 can get a medical card. on top of that, if you're stopped carrying an ounce or less WITHOUT a license, it's $100 fine and a misdemeanor. has been since '75 in cali - although before that it was 10 years in prison, no questions asked.

so it's come a long way.

  On 3/30/2010 at 7:39 PM, uptowndevil said:

i don't see how it could be much more legal than it currently is in Colorado. i was there recently and they've all gone completely weed crazy. $100 gets you a license to buy it from a shop whenever you want/grow it yourself.

this is what I meant about it being legal in other places. And the "decriminalization" in Mass. is very close to being legal. No public distributors, but I see people smoking up on the streets all the time.

And yeah, the number of people (including Fly Lo!) that use medical marijuana in Cali is insane.

my main gripe with MJ in new york is just how damn expensive it is. everything is super high quality, low quantity. but sometimes i think it's just low quantity. would love to read pot reviews like i do for music/beer, then go buy it and pay my taxes like a good citizen, help fund wars abroad, schools, and stuff.

  On 3/30/2010 at 7:37 PM, maus said:

 

 

it's been decriminalized in a few

I can say that in North Carolina you can have up to just under an ounce on you, and all they will do is just take it unless you are doing something else really bad, ie general or violent crime, impaired (alcohol) driving, etc. If they just catch you smoking a spliff and you aren't on private property (ie a large corporate owned concert venue), they will just take it and tell you to move along in MOST cases. Unless they don't like the way you look.

I know of a case where a "dealer" was busted b/c cops thought they were trading guns, selling coke, and growing weed. When in reality all they were doing was selling small amounts of good weed to close contacts only (ie they didn't look for buyers, it was a word of mouth only thing, only approved people could stop by). Anyway, when the person was busted they lawyered up and didn't get anything other than some misdemeanor charges. The cops were embarrassed they had spent so much money on what was supposed to be a huge bust, and was just a small time weed dealer. The main Vice cop said to the quote "we aren't worried about pot dealers. Only guns and cocaine." The "dealer" was released after being processed downtown, and spent no timewhatsoever in jail, and only got a year probation.

Weed was dicriminilized in NC sometime around 2000.

There was another incident though, where a friend was at a concert venue (for ozzfest) that is owned by good ol' clear channel. There were hundreds of undercovers there all hired by clear channel, they were wearing metal and ozzy shirts to blend in. All he was doing was smoking a joint and had no additional weed on him. They arrested him, processed him, kicked him out of the venue, he had to go to court, and got a few misdemenors and many hours of community service.

So aside from the whole "the govt. is gonna tax the crap outta weed if its legal" etc etc arguments against making it legal. I think it is a fantastic idea to avoid these kinds of police force wastes, private companies/cops making big bucks hiring these kind of task force teams, and not to mention the ridiculous percentage of the population that is IN JAIL for minor drug offenses.

Edit: and the LEGAL jobs it will create for growers/distributors/more head shops/cafes/etc.

I have no complaints about the current prices. I would love to see weed treated just like every other farm crop. I know that NC and CA economy problems would be helped. NC has a HUGE market for pot. The soil and climate are great, and weed is already the #1 un-official cash crop of NC. Many current/former tobacco formers very much support scraping their fields and making them half indoor (to survive in the winter) half outdoor pot fields. Would love to see it.

Crime is crime and it's going to happen whether something is legal or not. I certainly don't think it would increase at all. If anything bad would happen I could see it being the massive suppliers switching their drug focus to something addictive (coke, crack) and those becoming more of a problem, but I don't really think so as both of those are already more than available, plentiful, and cheap.

2nd edit: I also know of someone that kind sort of make sense of the "dealers don't want it to be legal b/c they will make less money" claim. This person has decided when it becomes legal that they will sell their current house and buy some land and become a farmer/distributor and not only make more money, but have a better and more enjoyable life altogether doing something they have many years of experience with.

weed is so easy to grow i couldn't imagine not doing it if it were legal. people with no high school education could make loads of money and the market would inflate, causing prices to drop. win-win.

employ the unemployed/unemployable and get some money moving around.

"i was gonna vote on prop 420, but then i got high"

it will be interesting to see how it all plays out if full legalization (not decriminalization) takes place. I imagine companies like RJ reynolds have brainstorming rooms where they already have drawings of packs of special editions of Spliff Camels.

  On 3/30/2010 at 7:39 PM, uptowndevil said:

i don't see how it could be much more legal than it currently is in Colorado. i was there recently and they've all gone completely weed crazy. $100 gets you a license to buy it from a shop whenever you want/grow it yourself.

Yeah I was there last summer and it's gone mental, it was so easy to come by. Many of my friends have licenses now. And it's all premium quality bud.

One thing that will be kind of lame once legalized. Companies will still participate in drug testing and will be able to fire you or deny you employment under their own company policies. The up side is that many companies are currently making progress towards not using drug testing anymore, as it is a privacy violation. Also most companies don't really care what you do outside of work as long as you are a good worker and are on time. It's an uphill battle though. The company I work for has put me in charge of drug policy, which I am eradicating completely with their support. Sadly we still have a company that we work with who are fierce about their drug policy and are about to waste a LOT of our money not only on initial, but randoms as well .

Randoms are the most ridiculous things. Hey I'm going to fire a great worker because he smoked a joint 4 weeks ago. w00t.

On the plus side we're going to be using instant tests which are not that accurate and the "drink lots of water" trick can still kind of work with them.

the thing about drug testing in the work place (urine testing, hair is extremely rare only for specialized jobs) is that it really only is effective for being able to tell if you've smoked weed recently, almost every other Schedule 1 or 2 drug: heroin, coke, mdma, prescription opiates, benzos, meth, prescription speed has a half-file of less than 18 hours. If you go on a week long coke bender but stop 24 hours before a drug test you'll most likely check out clean, but if you smoke a single joint 2 weeks before you will show up as positive. pretty fair isnt it? marijuana is a very unique drug in that traces of it get stored in your fall cells