It's Official!

LATimes

Measure to legalize marijuana will be on California's November ballot

The measure's main advocate, Richard Lee, an Oakland marijuana entrepreneur, savored the chance to press his case with voters that the state's decades-old ban on marijuana is a failed policy.

"We're one step closer to ending cannabis prohibition and the unjust laws that lock people up for cannabis while alcohol is not only sold openly but advertised on television to kids every day," he said.

There was a woman on TV last night who said, and I paraphrase a little, "what kind of message will this send to the children?", which is one of the big anti-pot talking points we're going to hear, no doubt.

Look, lady, if you have kids, set the example for them by NOT smoking dope, drinking booze, snorting coke, or shooting heroin around them, and if you must, at least quit fucking barnyard animals while you're loaded where they can see you. Use a little common sense and take the goats outside. Yeesh.

I've got a hunch that legalization will cause a lot of the kids to lose interest in smoking weed. Just sayin'...

Possession of an ounce or less has been a misdemeanor with a $100 fine since 1975, when Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown, who was then governor, signed a law that reduced tough marijuana penalties that had allowed judges to impose 10-year sentences.

In case I haven't mentioned that there are good reasons for Moonbeam to be our next governor besides the fact that he isn't a rich Repug CEO with delusions about corporate power translating easily into governing the ungovernable and those who wish to be, there's one.

Just as an aside, he was on TV yesterday with his old '67 Plymouth, talking about how he was glad it had bench seats so Linda Ronstadt could slide a little closer on dates. I'm down wid dat! Heh. I've been looking for the video with no success, drat the luck. I did find this one though. Don't miss!

Where was I? Oh, I remember...

With polls showing that a slim majority of voters support legalization, the legalization campaign will be trying to appeal to a slice of undecided voters who are mostly mothers. "It's always easier for people to say no than to say yes for an initiative," said Mark Baldassare, the pollster for the Public Policy Institute of California.

The informal KCRA poll yesterday was 64% for, 36% against. If that's 'slim', I'll take it!

We will see...

Update:

Good article by Doc Gurley:

SO what do I know about this issue? As the physician and City public health administrator tasked with the initial implementation of Proposition 215 (legalizing medical marijuana) - I learned a lot.

On the data side, I compiled every bit of published research about marijuana (positive and negative) from the previous thirty years, researching every conceivable symptom and/or adverse event. The results were published and widely cited. I also gave talks using this same information about the health implications (and the quality of the data to support or refute claims) to any group interested in hearing it.

So how'd that go? While giving the exact same talk, using the exact same slides, I received impulsive, giddy gifts from both a San Francisco medical marijuana club (an enameled marijuana pin - "finally, a physician willing to speak the truth about how safe marijuana is!") and from the Santa Clara police department (a navy-blue district attorney mug - "finally, a physician willing to tell the truth about how dangerous this drug is!"). I had simultaneously become the unwilling darling of both ends of the spectrum. I learned from this experience two things:

Go.