My thoughts on Proposition 19

[kaysho]

October in California is the start of two seasons: the rainy season and the proposition season.  The first is a result of Mother Nature.  The second is a result of our penchant to want to vote on everything.  I happen to think both are pretty much all wet, but that's another story.

At the top of the ballot this year will be Proposition 19, which

Comments

[bohor]

Imagine how difficult it would be to park your car if a red kerb meant "don't park here" in San Jose but "it's OK for red cars to park here" in Fremont and "20 minute parking" in Santa Clara.

We kind of already have that with regards to carpool lanes. I am strongly in favor of Prop. 19 even though (contrary to my appearance) I don't use the stuff. This article covers most of the reasons I support it. But even more than that, I think we send a very bad, very hypocritical message in having tobacco and alcohol as legal substances while prohibiting marijuana. Add in the variety of energy drinks and "nutritional supplements" that are virtually unregulated, and marijuana prohibition makes even less sense. Unlike drugs like crack, meth, or heroin, it's entirely reasonable to make this drug available and expect people to be capable of exercising personal responsibility around it.

The flaws in the legislation don't bother me much. It's a rare opportunity that we have enough popular support for legalization; we should grab it while we have it, then tweak the laws as needed later, rather than wait until we have a "perfect" bill and risk losing the popular support.

[kaysho]

That is one thing that's always struck me as funny about the argument that marijuana is a "gateway" drug to worse things, and that therefore legalising it is bad. It has that role, to the extent that it does, only because a) it's illegal, and b) it's "mild" enough that it might make people think, "Hey, if pot is illegal but was pretty nice, maybe X isn't so bad, either!", where X is coke or heroin or something nasty.

Make weed legal, and you might actually cut the demand for the truly nasty stuff by making sure all the things on the far side of the "gateway" are honestly don't-go-there nasty.

[bohor]

Exactly. The reason the hypocrisy is so dangerous is that we lose credibility if the laws and warnings don't correspond to the reality of the effects. If you throw out an accurate perspective of the effect of these drugs, you throw out your credibility with it.

[kaysho]

Oh, and to your other point, indeed, that is the basis of my first "yes" thought: grab this bull by the horns, because a no vote quite probably means no later chances to vote on something that I might like better. :)