

Why did California vote down legal pot? - miles
http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/11/03/miron.pot.vote/

======
miles
FTA: _"First and foremost, advocates must emphasize that in a free society,
the burden of proof should be on prohibitionists to justify the interference
with liberty that results from outlawing marijuana, a burden the
prohibitionists have never met. Any calm assessment of marijuana versus
alcohol, for example, shows that alcohol is the substance with the greater
potential for harm."_

~~~
epo
This is naive, if we knew then what we know now alcohol would never have been
legalised.

We have to deal with the situation we have and criminalising alcohol would be
very difficult, its too entrenched.

The fact that alcohol is worse and legal is not in itself an argument for
legalising cannabis.

~~~
philwelch
"if we knew then what we know now alcohol would never have been legalised"

So the St. Valentine's Day Massacre isn't enough to convince you Prohibition
was a bad idea, eh?

~~~
epo
Prohibition was about criminalising alcohol, which I said was a bad idea. The
problem was legalising alcohol in the first place, which would not have
happened had we known then what we know now.

Also the SVD massacre was IMHO only tangentially associated with alcohol. It
was part of a war between armed gangs, had it not been alcohol it would have
been gambling, prostitution or something else.

However my karma has taken enough hits for today.

~~~
philwelch
_The problem was legalising alcohol in the first place_

I'm pretty sure alcohol (like everything else) was legal by default, and had
to actually be prohibited at some point _before_ it could be legalized.

------
woodpanel
I've read that when it comes to votes on specific propositions (Initiatives)
the average voter tends to be more cautious. Therefore we tend to give into
the prohibitionists and fear of allowing something, even if most of us would
consider themselves non-conservative.

Examples:

\- California says NO to prop-19

\- Switzerland
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minaret_controversy_in_Switzerl...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minaret_controversy_in_Switzerland)

\- Hamburg says NO to modernize public school system

\- Netherlands + France say no to european constitution

\- Initiatives to combine administrative entities (e.g. federal states) mostly
fail

\- If a referendum about the euro was hold in Germany in 1999, there wouldn't
be no euro today

~~~
varjag
> Netherlands + France say no to european constitution

Why is that a bad thing? The constitution would be a major setback for
democratic process in EU, where the actual governance is already too far
removed from voter.

~~~
woodpanel
I'm not saying that voting it down was wrong. The same would have happened if
we germans hat a chance to vote on that. But it proves the point isn't it?

~~~
varjag
Well yes, it's just that it was on the list with other items supposedly
illustrating a backwards/un-liberal voting pattern.

But sure, your point was clear.

~~~
woodpanel
Well that's actually true. But i guess that voting the pattern was not
intended to be "people voting down good things" but "people voting to prohibit
changes"

------
kevin_morrill
It actually looks like it added more complication than is already present. It
touted the fact that it taxed use heavily, where it's not taxed today.

It also stood to undermine freedom of association, putting limits on an
employer to fire you for using marijuana. It's already hard enough to fire
people ('firing', otherwise known as 'get someone working in a job where
they're actually creating value').

~~~
kamechan
it's taxed ... just by drug dealers who get to charge a premium for something
that could otherwise have been cheap and/or could be generating a revenue
stream for the government. not saying that i'm pro-pot, i'm not. but i am
anti-regulation of substances which create an incentivized underground market,
to a large extent.

~~~
bilban
All so backward - why even have the middle man. How about a sensible use
policy, illegal to sell pot, but make it legal to grow your own, still illegal
to grow with intent to supply. Or even cap the amount of plants you are
allowed to grow. In the UK you can make your own beer, or grow your own
tobacco, but there is a cap on production.

Not everything has to be a business!

~~~
rms
Making cannabis an exception to the law of comparative advantage doesn't seem
like a sensible use policy to me.

~~~
bilban
I'd not come across the term 'comparative advantage' before. Not thought of it
from that angle. You want the freedom to turn pot into a commodity?

Growing the plant, a weed is pretty trivial. Anyone could do it. Which means
those barriers are not in place. However, I appreciate some people might not
have the time and energy - how about additionally making it okay to give to
your friends?

The recreational drug I do frequently is alcohol just because it's legally and
sociably acceptable - given a free choice it certainly wouldn't be my first.

------
stretchwithme
There were some late commercials stating that prop 19 actually reduced some
rights of patients to grow their own, let cities opt out of some things and
imposed new penalties for some things. I don't know how true those statements
were, but perhaps they created some doubt about the measure.

I voted yes, but I think many people simply vote no when the situation isn't
clear.

------
DanielBMarkham
Pick a simple message, stay focused, and compromise (co-opt) your potential
opponents. That is, find some people who would naturally take the other side
and convince them that your plan is the best. Potential opponents will do much
more for your argument than echo-chamber cheerleaders will. In fact, many
times you want to shut up the cheerleaders because their enthusiasm and over-
the-top rhetoric can easily polarize the undecided.

This has been the way of politics for thousands of years. On all kinds of
issues.

It sounds like Prop 19 failed in all of these areas. I'm not a smoker, but I'm
a libertarian, and I was rooting for it. It's a shame it didn't work out the
way many folks wanted.

------
eof
Am I the only one that gives some credence to the possibility these things are
rigged?

I guess exit polls were in line so it's not likely at all; but I am surprised
people don't give that serious consideration.

If things haven't changed since I voted there in 02, there isn't even a paper
trail in California (at least in some districts). So I am not sure if a real
audit is even possible considering they are allowed to keep their source
closed.

Prop 19 didn't pass it seems because the kids just didn't get out and vote. It
was a generational gap more than anything, and the less-voting generation
didn't increase their voting, thus they lost.

