Regulate Control & Tax Cannabis Act of 2010
I’m here representing NORML at the Spring Gathering in San Bernardino. I was on the first panel of the day on the Regulate, Control, & Tax Cannabis Act of 2010 (TC 2010), moderated by Steve Bloom from CelebStoner. Sitting with me were Dale Sky Clare from Oaksterdam and Jennifer Soares, an attorney from Los Angeles who has reservations about the ballot measure to be voted on in November.
So in a sense, I am at a medical marijuana expo and 420-friendly concert festival trying to convince an audience of pot smokers it is their best interests to vote for marijuana legalization. I should be as unnecessary as instructions for a comb.
But there they were, people in the audience and a person on the podium raising doubts as to whether legalization of cannabis for adults in this initiative is a good thing.
Soares pointed out that the initiative gives local control to municipalities to set regulations for the commercial production and sales of cannabis, so that these local governments that don’t like cannabis can do nothing and nobody will be able to buy and sell.
You mean… like now? Where nobody can buy and sell? Clare pointed out that right now, there is no opportunity for any municipality to allow buying and selling. At least with TC 2010, some places could buy and sell, and in all places, everyone can self-grow, share, hold, and use.
Soares said that she’s in Southern California, in Los Angeles, where even with Prop-215 it has been a constant battle with authorities, not Northern California (Oaksterdam is in Oakland) where everyone’s very tolerant of cannabis. ”So Oakland will go forward with sales; do you all want to have to drive to Oakland to buy your cannabis?” she asked the audience.
You mean the folks that don’t go buy their 215 recommendation and go to the 70 dispensaries that will still be open in the LA area? Well, I don’t know. If I lived in LA and there was legal weed in Oakland, I think me and a few friends might make a road trip. Heck, I might make that road trip from Portland!
I guess I just am missing something. People are getting their weed in LA now, either quasi-legally or illegally. When they are caught with it, they can get a ticket and harassment, when they are buying and selling it, they can get a felony and prison. When TC 2010 passes, the first part of that last sentence goes away. People over 21 won’t be ticketed or harassed for their marijuana. If LA doesn’t regulate buying and selling, then Angelenos are in exactly the same position they are now – felony and prison. So because TC 2010 doesn’t perfectly mandate California to allow buying and selling, we shouldn’t legalize smoking, holding, sharing, and growing your own?
And as Clare pointed out, TC 2010 specifically does not force California to do that because that would put them in positive conflict with federal law and the whole thing gets shot down in court. If a law tells California to break a federal law (no buying/selling Schedule I marijuana), it will be struck down. TC 2010 doesn’t tell California to do anything but allows municipalities to do a limited something.
Then we have the questions from the audience. The first guy wants to know how we can say TC 2010 will reduce crime when everybody’s allowed to grow a 5′x5′ garden, what’s to stop someone with a black thumb from jumping the fence to steal from the green thumb?
Clare and I paused a moment to wrap our minds around the question. She pointed out that the difference will be that if someone does jump the fence to steal your crop, you can actually call the cops because what you were doing is legal, unlike now, where you’re a victim twice; once from the robbery and once for being unable to call the police because you’re a criminal.
Then I joined in to make my biggest point. When you legalize home growing, whether it is 5′x5′, 10′x10′, a warehouse, or a single plant, the whole game changes. No longer is your house smelling like pot probable cause for a search warrant. No longer is the sight of a marijuana leaf through a window, a bong on the table, an infrared heat signature, receipts from grow equipment, seeds and stems and baggies in your trash, none of it is cause for a judge to sign a search warrant. That ALONE is enough to vote for TC 2010!
I kept trying to make the point that too many in the movement are missing the forest for the trees. It is immoral to punish adults for their use of cannabis, period. This Act seeks to end that immorality. And it is bigger than California; this is a vote for the nation. Nobody outside marijuana advocacy circles knows or cares about the details, they just know California is voting on “legalization”. A “no” vote gives legislators in the other 49 states the “even California wouldn’t go that far” talking point. A “yes” vote gives those other states a lab to observe for the next few years and will embolden some to move forward with their own version.
Another audience member, a 21-year-old, made the point that the government sucks, man, you see how those guys run things now, we don’t want them messing up what we got, we just want the gub’mint to leave us growers alone! (I’m paraphrasing) which drew some cheers from the crowd.
I broke right in and said, “I’m with you, my man, if you can name another commercial agricultural product in this country that’s treated like you want marijuana treated.” Silence. ”I agree with you on some of the government stuff, we could talk about that all day, but the reality is that any agricultural product, tomatoes, kumquats, if you grow enough of it, you will be subject to taxation, regulation, and government controls.
“There’s a saying in politics: don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. I don’t think TC 2010 is perfect. But it’s on the ballot, so it is the most perfect legalization initiative you can vote for. If I had my way, the perfect bill would be what I call the Marijuana Zucchini Equalization Act – from now on, marijuana is treated like zucchini. You can grow as much as you want, you can sell it, you can give it away, there’s no limit on how much you can have or how much you can eat. Like zucchini, everyone who wants some will have a garden and they’ll annoy their friends and family trying to give it away… ‘naw, man, I got enough zucchini!’
“But in reality, nobody is worried about their kid hopping your fence to steal your zucchini. Nobody’s worried about you loading up on zucchini bread and getting behind the wheel on the freeway. We know the plant, we know it is ‘the safest therapeutically active substance known to man’, we know it is far less harmful than alcohol and tobacco, but to the rest of the state and country out there, it’s only a little less scary than crack cocaine and heroin. So we have to write legislation with compromises and controls that seem ridiculous to us, but help to allay the fears of the ignorant.”
Another guy asked about workplace drug testing. On this, the whole panel agreed that what we have now will probably be what we have then. Even with legal weed, California is an “at will” state and you can be terminated without cause if the boss doesn’t like your cologne. There will still be federal drug-free workplace standards and companies that will point to cannabis being federally illegal to support that.
It was a great panel and a lively discussion, and I feel for Soares, who was kinda thrown into a 2-on-1 situation in front of an audience that generally wants weed legalized. And those two were me and Dale and she’s a phenomenal public speaker and I consider myself pretty good, too. As I was representing NORML’s position, I didn’t bring up my personal issues with the initiative, and I let Soares know later when we met at the VIP area.
For one, TC 2010 creates a new penalty for people over age 21 if they provide pot to people aged 18-20. There have always been criminal penalties and jail time for people 18 and older supplying to minors, but currently a 21yo passing a joint to a 20yo is just a ticket. After TC 2010, it becomes a jailable offense.
That’s a problem for me, as I realize that people 18-25 are the top demo for pot smoking (28% annually, 11% at least 2x week) and that it is very easy as a 21yo to have younger friends who, in my mind, should be treated as adults. In fact, I think the age should be 18 anyway. But politically, you’re never going to pass anything that treats marijuana less stringently than alcohol (though it should be). Eighteen in many cases means “high school kid” and no language that puts pot in high schools is ever going to pass.
However, if the choice is a small subset of adults with young friends might get jail vs. every adult with pot or a plant gets jail, I have to go with the former. Besides, it reminds me of when the drinking age was raised from 19 to 21 in my home state of Idaho. When the law changed, all 19yos were grandfathered-in when the law hit 21. So for two years, there were classmates of mine who were 19yo drinkers who just months later, when their friends turned 19, couldn’t drink with them. There is always some sort of “doughnut hole” demographically when you set an age limit on anything.
Plus, without the easy probable causes I listed above and without the fish-in-a-barrel chance of finding someone to bust for marijuana possession, it will have to become far less of a priority for police. Economically, the time they’d have to spend to go out looking for the 21yo passing the joint to the 20yo just won’t be worth it.
I also have a tiny grumble with the 5′x5′ limit (it is a bit small to support clones, veg, flower, mother plants, etc.) but not much sympathy for the Californians grumbling about it when they still will be able to get medical recs and grow a lot more than that. It’s certainly better than the 0′x0′ gardens allowed now.
But overall, voting to not be a criminal outweighs all that. This is more than just the letter of these laws, this is sea change in the whole frame of the debate. You will no longer be criminals. On the drug testing angle, it will be politically more difficult for businesses to justify testing for weed. The problems with medical marijuana subside as that pressure to keep track of who’s a “patient” and who’s a “criminal” will be eased. People who wouldn’t engage before with law enforcement and government can do so without fearing undue intrusion into their lives for their “criminal” activities. And the rest of the country can look at the emerging industries and tax revenue cannabis (and hemp!) will bring to California and not seeing the sky fall will help them make that move in their states.
Or much shorter: Not voting for TC 2010 means you think what’s happening now is fine and voting against TC 2010 means you think it would be worse than what’s happening now.
With all due respect, the discussion is academic.
Was 215 a perfect law? How many states now have medical? How many states are heading there?
Are there perfect laws? Of course not. It’s a process.
Was prohibition repealed in one initiative? Did women win suffrage in one act? Of course not.
Is setting an impossible standard, then opining endlessly, academic?
I’ll let you answer that.
P.S., The statement about lawyers watching for the ‘mess’ is patently incorrect. There is a broad, growing highly respected coalition of nationally recognized attorneys supporting the measure.
I have to agree with Radical Russ(What’s up bro, watch your podcast daily). There is too much at stake, too many people watching, too many people suffering under prohibition to not act now. You guys in Califonia HAVE to pass this ballot iniative this November. It WILL be the catalyst for the entire world. Please understand this, California will be the catalyst for the entire world, the momentum is here NOW.
And what about in 2012? What are you going to do if a Republican is elected president(non-libertarian republican that is). Do you realize how hard this will be to do if Republicans take the White House in 2012? The whole federal vs. state laws thing will become a much harder fight when the government decides to double drug control spending to go after everyone in the country who is pushing for the legalization of cannabis.
I’ve just had the cannabis conversation with my Christian family. My dad is a Methodist minister, I was pretty scared to approach him about eliminating prohibition. To my surprise he felt the same as me but hadn’t really ever given it much thought. Of course he had the usual reservations, i.e. what about the kids and driving under the influence, but when he saw that the drug war cost society more than the drugs themselves, he realized it was his Christian duty to look into it and alleviate the pain and suffering inflicted on the general population in the name of controlling others’ private behavior. You cannot legislate sin away. He has much to learn, but I’m pushing him to start bringing the idea into the limelight of the United Methodist Church.
I, too, am going to be moving out to California so as not to be prosecuted and hassled for my choice of recreational substances. But when I get there, I will be joining up with NORML. I am going to devote my life to this cause, as long as I have a roof over my head, food to eat, and a few kind buds. I think we need more upstanding citizens, people who look “normal” to join this fight. I think it will be a lot easier for me to get up in front of a church and speak about these things than others, and I have the unique position of being brought up in a Christian home by a pastor. I will be able to demonstrate, in a language that rural church-goers understand, that the regulation and taxation of cannabis is in their best interests. I’ve already found a few Bible verses to help build my case.
For my mother the tipping point in my debate with her about this cause occurred while she was playing with her grandkids, my niece and nephew. I said what if one of these little ones were kidnapped tomorrow and the cops swooped in and started the manhunt. Now how do you feel knowing they only sent 10 cops to search for your missing child when they could have sent 15, but sorry…they’re out looking for Joe Smokes-A-Few. I said I don’t care if someone’s got a frickin fridge sized bundle of marijuana sitting in their house, their priority should be the children. We’re prosecuting people for something that’s a crime against no one and how can you justify spending one single second doing that when there is still even one missing child in this country? We have cops with their asses in the air looking for a marijuana seed on the floor of your car, while the psycho pedophile who just raped chopped into little pieces and ate a little helpless 10 year old, drives away and is never caught. You can’t tell me that if we spend 25 BILLION dollars worth of police power looking for REAL criminals, we won’t catch a few that we otherwise wouldn’t have caught.
This is why it’s so important that we act now. I don’t care if it’s imperfect, imprudent, rushed, not ideal. Whatever you want to call it, it needs to be legalized NOW. The life of children LITERALLY depends on it.
Thank You,
Joshua Snyder
I agree that bad actors will try to find loopholes in any legislation we pass. In the meantime, how about adults who have an ounce or less and grow 5×5 or less WON’T BE CRIMINALS ANYMORE?
All the opposition I’ve heard to this has been centered on three things:
LA won’t allow buying and selling
There are penalties for smoking around kids or 21+s passing a joint to 18-21s
The jerks who fight Prop-215 (Trutanich, Cooley, Dumanis, et al) will fight this
So LA won’t allow buying and selling. They don’t now.
Don’t smoke with youngsters. (One disaster scenario I heard was that some judge would interpret “don’t smoke in a place with minors” as meaning a concert venue where every adult is busted and the hall owners taken down if a kid is caught with a joint. Really?)
Trutanich, Cooley, and Dumanis won’t have as easy a time getting warrants when the default assumption is that someone’s marijuana grow is legal.
I just can’t turn to a person in California and say, sorry, your pot plant and ounce will still have to get you a spot in a cell, because Carmen Trutanich might misinterpret this law and make life hard for someone who wants to make a load of money selling pot.
Because, essentially, to vote no is to say this initiative would be worse than continuing the drug war as it is. 2.3 million pot smokers in California, very few of whom will be large scale growers or sellers or want to smoke with people younger than 21. 2.3 million you want to tell to wait another two or more years while they’re subject to tickets for possession and jail.
Thanks Jennifer, and I’ll leave it at that, because you make valid points of concern and a call to read twice what we vote on is never a bad thing.
But I’ve got to take issue with this:
Were we at the same “medical marijuana” expo? Over the past four weeks I have been to three events in California – SF, LA, and San Bernardino. At one event there was a 10×10 booth with a line out the door to get a “special event-only discount” for a $99 cash-only Prop-215 recommendation from a “doctor” who, seriously, was wearing a stethoscope to supposedly hear vitals while there was the loud rap group’s music blaring in the next booth.
At last weekend’s event, the bands were Method Man & Redman, Kottonmouth Kings, Rebelution, hed(pe) and others, all stridently pro-legalization, performing in a haze of pot smoke so thick foghorns were blowing on the coast to help ships navigate through it.
Each event featured “collective” after “collective” advertising their bargain $45 four-gram eighths and offering a free joint to new customers, er, I mean, patients.
If you think I’M encouraging any “abuse”, then I really have some power, because it appears to me that it got there long before I did. I hate to write like a prohibitionist, but there’s a case to be made for recreational use being the excuse for the vast majority of those 18-22 year olds that dominated the attendees. Yeah, you need it for your migraines, kid… got a headache right now? For your insomnia… are you really napping through hed(pe)? Oh, for your anxiety… that explains why you’re so calm in the mosh pit, right?
Surrounded in LA as you are and buried under heaps of truly unjust court cases for legitimate collectives and needy patients I think you don’t see this “medical” use the way the rest of the country does. You mentioned the rest of the country looking at California to see what not to do in lawmaking; well, legislators seeing what “medical marijuana” means in California is what got home grow taken away in New Jersey and what led to vetoes for patients in Minnesota, Connecticut, and New Hampshire.
People generally don’t mind people smoking pot for medical use, many even don’t mind people smoking pot for recreational use, but nobody likes, as Judge Judy would say, to have their legs pissed on and be told it’s raining.
This is why I’ve been wary of medical marijuana as a reform strategy, because it places marijuana in a stricter category than it belongs and sets a frame of “medicine” that requires verifiable symptoms and conditions, doctor and state supervision, and controlled dosages. So you pull a voter’s heartstrings with the sight of the frail cancer patient on chemo, people buy into the “medical” frame, and then they’re hit with the cognitive dissonance of watching young people at a rap concert getting “medicated”.
This is also why I am so rah-rah about this initiative, because after fourteen years of dancing around the obviously popular use of Prop 215 to acquire marijuana to treat Overloaded Wallet Syndrome, somebody has finally put on the ballot the chance to end the charade and say there’s nothing wrong with any adult smoking pot for whatever reason.
The notion that someone is going to drive what, eight hours to Oakland, or find someone “on the streets” to get cannabis is ludicrous. How are they getting their cannabis right now? Sure, some “on the streets” (read: from a friend who grows) but most likely by spending tow or three Oakland trip’s gas money on a Prop-215 rec and visiting one of those $45 four-gram “collectives” they saw advertised at a concert.
I am for everyone’s right to use cannabis, period. I am sick and tired of having to defend it on the increasingly distorted landscape of calling it “medical”. There is no doubt cannabis has amazing medical properties, but the longer the rest of the country sees “medical patients” (a redundancy) getting high and calling it “medical”, the harder and faster that pendulum is going to swing back against legalization and toward stricter, tighter medical marijuana legislation. Ask every other state but California and Colorado.
Russ, like I said to you in the VIP cabana after the panel, everyone needs to read the initiative twice. Read it once to know what you are voting on. Read it a second time and try to put yourself in the shoes of a LEO that hates cannabis, or Carmen Trutanich, or Steve Cooley, or a judge or DA that will be deciding your freedom. What nice little loopholes are there that will send more people to jail instead of less. Trutanich has a hard on for this issue. He will use whatever leverage he has to ERADICATE marijuana even if he has to invent it.
1) I’m not saying that the initiative was written only to make those that wrote it rich. I’m simply suggesting that people realize there may be a bias behind the ra-ra-ra-ing that has been going on regarding TC 2010. People should be informed. And part of that information is knowing who will benefit most from the initiative and some of its (in my opinion) flaws.
2) Like I said Russ, if nothing will be different for the 120-130 cities where we cannot commercially cultivate or distribute now….won’t the possibility that some will allow it be good enough? No. voting in a bad law is going to make more bad law for the entire state when this issue is litigated. So if the 120-130 cities will be in the same position in Nov. as they are now, why vote in a faulty law? If nothing is going to change for the vast majority of california citizens, why not hold out for something that is more specific, better written, and beneficial to all recreational users?
As for your last comment, by your own argument, TC 2010 is unnecessary. If everyone can get their Prop 215 card to get their cannabis, TC 2010 is unnecessary. But the key here is, we are talking about recreational use, not medical use. And I really hope you’re not suggesting people abuse the medical marijuana laws to consume recreational cannabis. We’re all aware there is some abuse, but by no means should we be encouraging it. So, if this law does pass and a Los Angeles recreational user cannot himself grow, as I’ve said a thousand times, he’s likely going to Oakland or to the streets for his recreational cannabis.
I know, the zucchini analogy is purposefully an exaggeration. Zucchini weed would be more analogous to ditch weed. Yours is more “prize roses” I suppose.
Look, if California passes legalization and judges and cities start cherry picking it to deny the will of the people, it will just be greater motivation for the next initiative that cleans it all up. Remember SB420 and that they couldn’t modify Prop-215 because it was a citizen initiative? Same will go for TC 2010.
For everyone that is complaining about this part or that part of TC 2010, I ask them where their signature gathering was to put their better initiative on the ballot? For me, I’m thrilled that someone spent their own money to get this done (not relying on a billionaire), got way more than the required signatures, and is doing something NOW to end prohibition, not in two years, not when there’s a perfect initiative, but NOW.
Thanks for replying, Jennifer. I appreciate your points of view. However, I do take two exceptions to your points:
1) I don’t ascribe ulterior motives to people in Oakland writing an initiative specifically to make themselves rich.
2) If anti-cannabis municipalities decide to do nothing and thereby commercial cultivation and selling isn’t allowed, how does that differ from now? Currently NO town can allow buying and selling. Afterward maybe some do. Isn’t that better?
I’d also note that “you’re headed to Oakland, my friend” is the same kind of misinformation you speak out against. What will the cannabis consumer in unfriendly LA do if it doesn’t allow ? I think long before they spend the time and gas to get to Oakland, they’ll go to the pot-doc, get a recommendation for their Overloaded Wallet Syndrome, and visit one of the 70 remaining dispensaries.
Like they do now.
I’d just like to clarify a few things. First and most importantly, I want to make sure everyone is aware that I do support legalization by adults. Most people in this industry that I have spoken with who are against TC 2010, and it is my own view point as well, agree that cannabis should be legal for personal use by responsible adults. How that is accomplished, however, is where the TC 2010 crew and the nay-sayers of the industry part ways.
The biggest problem with this initiative, in my opinion as an attorney, is that people are using the propaganda that any law is better than no law. Lawyers and Judges around the world will disagree with that. When there is no law, a law can always be made. When there is bad law, it can seldom be changed. A poorly written law leads to bad case law. And bad case law can ruin this industry. Imagine if an anti-cannabis judge gets his hands on a case that could decide an important part of TC 2010.
Guessing how vague laws will play out in court is like guessing the weather. We can get close, but sometimes we end up with just the opposite. Do we really want to leave the future of legalization in the hands of a judge who may or may not agree with the interpretation of the laypeople that are promoting TC 2010? Let us not forget the trouble we have already had in the court system with the Medical Marijuana laws. How many different judges have come to different conclusions on the same law? How many cases have made precedence that negatively affect the medical patients that the laws were meant to protect? I promise you Russ, I am not holding out for a perfect law. That will never happen. But what I will hold out for is something that is not so vague that cannabis users will be subject to the will and mood of the judge in their superior court. Coming from someone that sees how laws play out in court day in and day out, I can tell you that vagueness is a big problem. And if we are all to be in the same position we are already in, as you suggest Angelinos will be, why not hold out for a better law??
As for the “direct contention” issue with federal law, it is exactly the kind of misinformation I have been speaking out against. Using propaganda to sway voters and explain away problems with this initiative puts this industry in the same category as the inventors of reefer madness. What is positive conflict with federal law is VERY different than what has been suggested. Positive conflict is defined as a situation in which “simultaneous compliance with both state and federal law is impossible.” IE: State law says you must stand on your head and federal says you cannot stand on your head. Clearly, by following one law you are breaking the other. And mandating the municipalities to follow TC 2010 (if it were to require cities to make a permitting system) would not be requiring those municipalities to break federal law. This requirement would be EXACTLY like the portion of the MMP that requires counties to create a system for making patient identification cards. The only way that counties would be in violation of federal law (specifically the Controlled Substances Act) is if they can be considered an aider and abettor. The courts have already held that a county does not incur aider and abettor liability simply by complying with their obligations that would enable citizens to violate the CSA. In San Diego v. NORML the court specifically held that there was no positive conflict with federal law where California law mandated the counties to issue ID cards that would facilitate the use of cannabis. So, if TC 2010 mandated counties to issue licenses that would facilitate the cultivation of cannabis, this would not be in contention with federal law, as many proponents of this bill would like you to believe. Mandating the municipalities to make a permit system would, however, prevent municipalities from banning it. Now, think for just a moment, why would the people who wrote TC 2010 want it to be banned anywhere? The answer to that is simple. Oakland, where many of the TC 2010 proponents live, is already allowing retail sales for recreational use. So how many of those TC 2010 proponents own businesses that will benefit from the surrounding cities enacting bans? Oh so many of them. And how many recreational users will be punished by a ban in their city? Far too many.
And what about how the local municipalities will take TC 2010? There are already over 120 cities in the state of California that have banned medical marijuana. But unlike medical marijuana, where businesses were opened while politicians took years to pass ordinances, politicians must simply take the path of least resistance to ban recreational marijuana in their cities. They must simply sit back and do nothing and no permits will be issued for retail sales. No permits will be issued for distribution. And no permits will be issued for commercial cultivation.
So if there are no retail cannabis businesses in your city or county, where will you be going to get your cannabis? You have two choices: Oakland or back to the streets run by the drug cartels. I wonder how many drug cartel employees are pro TC 2010 for that exact reason. And I wonder how many Oakland business owners feel the same way.
Dale Sky Clare, however, suggested that you can simply get it for free from your friend who is growing in his 5×5. I will have to strongly disagree. I don’t see many cultivators that are restricted to a 5×5 being happy about sharing their harvest with all their black thumb friends. And because a person who grows in a 5×5 cannot sell the cannabis he/she harvests, under the IRS’ definition of sales, a cultivator cannot accept money, bartering or exchanges of any sort. Also, I doubt very seriously that Dale would be able to find a judge that will interpret “personal consumption” as allowing you to share with your friends. While the initiative does read that it shall not be a crime for anyone over 21 to share cannabis, the caveat to that is that it must be “solely for THAT (meaning the sharer not the recipient) individual’s personal consumption.” I’m not real sure how person A can share with person B for person A’s personal consumption. And I certainly don’t want to see how that plays out in court.
To make matters worse TC 2010 punishes the buyer for obtaining it illegally. See, right now, there is no crime for purchasing cannabis. Selling it (except medically) is a crime. Possession of it (except medically) is a crime. But the actual act of buying cannabis is not a crime. So if you are a patient, you can buy from a street dealer if you need to (not that I recommend it) and the street dealer is in trouble for selling but you are protected because you are legally in possession as a patient. Under TC 2010, if you received it from an illegal source, even if you are legally in possession, you have committed a crime. Thus if you receive your cannabis from a friend who trades it for an x-box game, you are a criminal.
People keep saying that if California fails to legalize, the whole country is watching. Having spoken to many attorneys working to legalize in other states, I can tell you that they are watching California. But not so they can follow suit. Other states are looking at California as the bad example of what to do. They are saying “Let’s learn from the lessons of California’s mess.”
Another issue that is sleeping in the shadows and is hugely open to interpretation is the clause that forbids smoking in the same “space” as a minor. Judge A might consider “space” to mean room. Judge B might consider “space” to mean house. Judge C might consider “space” to mean apartment complex. Let’s not even think what Judge D might consider “space” to mean. While I certainly hope that Judge A gets his hands on the case first, I am concerned for the parents who wish to use recreationally if Judge D does.
The probable cause issue is one that is very very lengthy. And while I won’t go into detail here, let me just say that I agree with you Russ. But I disagree that it will be to the extent that you have described. Police officers have pretty broad discretion. And the days of the good old “smash and grab” will not be over simply because of TC 2010.
@ Mikey: LA city did not ban medical marijuana, true. But most other cities in LA county and all of southern California did. Those that didn’t ban it yet are putting in moratoriums. And those that aren’t doing that are putting in ordinances so strict (like LA) that make it nearly impossible to operate legally (like LA). And even though LA city didn’t ban it, it took them 5 (technically 7) years to come up with an ordinance. So, if LA decides to allow recreational cannabis sales and commercial cultivation, it will likely take a very VERY long time. Ditto for all the other cities/counties in southern California. And in the mean time, is your cannabis dropping out of the sky? As far as I knew, it doesn’t rain much in LA and I would certainly remember if it started raining cannabis. Because other than a personal grow (if you have the time and growing ability) you’re headed to Oakland my friend.
I’ll repeat what I said on Saturday. I’m not telling anyone how to vote. I’m simply telling people to read the law and understand what they are voting for or against. No one should take anyone else’s word as truth, especially if that word has a bias. They need to know for themselves what rights they are gaining and what rights they are potentially giving up.
I love your zucchini analogy Russ, but……….I happen to grow both and growing medical grade cannabis is a whole different animal. Anyone that thinks they can throw a seed in the ground and end up with so much cannabis that they’re going to be bothering their friends when they try to give them some is smoking way too much. Come back to earth. Besides that, giving it away is a very grey part of this law that needs to be addressed.
i dunno if people will actually vote and pass this thing, but what i do know is this: 1st if this bill passes i think white America will have a shit fit… it ok I’m white… but i love weed… 2: has anyone thought about the mass migration of people to CA… hoards of people… maybe not… but if u do vote and pass this bill… i’ll be there… i will be there the day after it passes, or shortly there after, I’m coming from PA… i think the rest of America is with me when i say i hate the “HASSLE”… is he hold’n??? is it good??? hell, is it even weed??? i love pot but i hate getting ripped off… i vote yes on TC 2010 because i vote no on being HASSLED…
haha, yep some people here in California have that serf complex. When I was stationed in the Marines in Washington D.C. I smelled pot on a PT run with my platoon, other time we were getting ready to do a funeral, and as we waited for the DOD bus, a car full of dudes drove by smoking a blunt, and the smoke washed right over us. This was only about a mile and a half away from the Capitol of the UNITED STATES. Wake up, its everywhere, just legalize it so responsible adults who’s only crime is the consumption of cannabis won’t have their lives ruined, or be put in jail. I was stationed at Marine Barracks 8th & I Washington D.C. SouthEast.
Profit, Profit and greed is the only reason that anyone would want to vote no. Anyone spouting about not taxing my weed isnt looking at anything but profit. They dont care if 800,000 get arrested each year they care if they are rich.
As for the rest of CA, I mus say im worried that they are content, that they have theirs and why do they need to change anything. These people may even support the yes vote but will they take the time to go vote that day, being they do have theirs and are happy with the way it is, they have their medical card and they are good. These are the folks that we need to get out to vote these are the people that wont show up and will cause the vote to fail simply because they are content!
Im a medical user myself, but I would toke no matter what, and with that I feel that medical marijuana is dead, that its served its time and now we have to push this rock over the hill and get legal cannabis for all. The bills for medical marijuana are only getting worse, harder for the sick people that need it, more and more police giving their ideas and demanding their safeguards, only hurting the overall cause.
Now we have the medical community almost fighting against us and having issues with legalizing laws being voted on, whats going on and why after all the support and effort on the whole reform community to get these medical laws in place. Its crazy the situation we find ourselves in, twisting arms of cannabis consumers simply due to mis information given to them by our own people in the medical community.
We are at a major crossroads and if this fails then we will be doing a huge U turn in our road to legalizing. If that happens, many of us in states, states that will fight to the very end before legalizing, we will be overcome with grief and oppression for the rest of our lifetimes. I truly believe that a loss here in CA will cause a backlash against our movement, bigger than many will ever want to admit. Prohibitionists will use a loss as proof that the people dont want legal marijuana and that medical marijuana is a lie and when non believers of either side see and hear that, we have lost our chance to gain their support in the future. A loss this Nov, will push me out of the movement, its a limited amount that I do anyhow, but because my time effort and money will be spent seeking a new home, in a new state or new country all together in order to meet the requirements I need in my life to live the way I choose to, and to function like Im able to with Cannabis in my life.
Its not easy to say any of that, but Im too old and have no time to spend, no effort to now fight my fellow medical consumers on top of the more powerful prohibitionist movement due to a loss. Maybe things would be different for me if I had a group to work with, a chapter to join or to start, a movement here in my state that would give me hope, but I dont. After 6 years of trying to contact fellow activists in my state, contacting Norml even before Russ got involved, Even as far as getting all the paperwork in 05 to start a Chapter, I have failed to find anyone willing to step up and out to fight in my state. So from a far this whole mess of our own people not knowing the facts and starting a “vote no” movement inside of our own movement in CA is just nutz to me. It really shows something about our movement and its whats holding a national movement back.
First let me say everyone here that is involved in your local movements yet still find time to post here, to chat here, to donate to the stash and live show on top of your local chapter dues, I am thankful for all of you, you provide me with a group to be a part of and inspire me to continue in the face of nothingness in KY. Now with that said our movement fails because of the medical marijuana states and the people that have won their right to use but have forgotten how and who helped them do it. They are content with it the way it is, they have dropped the ball and left use living in limbo without any help from them on the national level. They have used the movement to win their rights and have left the work up to us for any national change, and now they want to fight what could be the one major vote that will change the way America deals with cannabis? NOT good.
I cant stand it, here I am living the movement as best i can chancing so much being a loner in my state writing letters, running ads for interested people to join me and exposing myself to backlash for all of it. Now I wait while some of my future depends on these folks that have won their right to toke and to me it looks like they are turning their back on me on all of us. We are still wallowing in shit in states like KY were you lose your life(as in home family job medical care, you name it its gone) all over a seed.
Wake Up CA, all you tokers and the medical community, this is it, this is the time to act and if you choose not to, well have fun when the whole thing comes down on your heads. Its your actions that will shape the future of cannabis reform for many years to come, so what will your actions be, to vote yes for all of us, or to vote no for your profit or your unfounded fears, mis information you have been told? So many of us are waiting on you and will be watching very close the next 6 months, so please stop the BS, get active and pass this dam law!
I think its weird that you have to convince stoners to legalize weed. I wish they would realize that not only are the other 49 states watching but the entire WORLD is watching.
In my opion it is imperative that California become the first state to vote for cannabis legalization.
California, please get out and vote to make this happen. Do it for the good of this country.Do it for the WORLD.
What makes people think Los Angeles wouldn’t allow or regulate retail cannabis sales? All the controversy lately has been over the city’s efforts to regulate medical dispensaries. Regulations that, although far too harsh, do not ban dispensaries outright in the city. Los Angeles may have some resistance, but it’s not fucking Idaho. There’s no reason to think Los Angeles residents would have to drive all the way to Oakland to get cannabis. Even if Los Angeles bans retail sales of cannabis, SOME community in Southern California will, probably several.