Read this informed piece before you make a discussion on Proposition 19 in California. There is a huge disinformation campaign right now on blogs, press, discussion boards and the media in general, don't be fooled into voting for oppression.
If you use cannabis, if you do not, please, take the time to be informed from a trusted source.
From Norml-
I’ve spent the weekend reading various blogs that have sprouted up in opposition to Proposition 19, California’s effort to legalize marijuana this November. These “Stoners Against Legalization” blogs confound me; they remind me of Sam Kinison’s line comparing “Rock Against Drugs” to “Christians Against Christ”.
Some of these blogs are based on the notion that legalization would be worse than “what we have now”. The assumption there is that if you smoke marijuana in California, you must already have your Prop 215 recommendation from a doctor, and you’d be losing your rights under Prop 19.
Most marijuana smokers, believe it or not, are healthy and aren’t comfortable spending money for a doctor to give them permission to use cannabis. Currently we face a ticket, fine, and misdemeanor drug conviction record for possession an ounce or less of cannabis. That record prevents us from getting student aid and can cost us our jobs, child custody, and housing, or if we’re on probation, our freedom. (Even if California succeeds at downgrading possession to an infraction from a misdemeanor, a $100 ticket is a lot of money to some people!) We face a felony charge if we grow even one plant at home. For us, Prop 19 is much better than “what we have now”.
Another thing that appears in some of these blogs is outright misinformation, such as talk of a $50/ounce state tax (it’s not in the initiative; that was Ammiano’s bill) or that it would supersede Prop 215 (it wouldn’t, and Prop 19 even references Prop 215 in its language, so it couldn’t). Others play up the “millionaires”, “big corporations”, and “monopolies” that would be created and the earnest Emerald Triangle family growers who’d be put out of business (which amuses me: Prop 19 allows localities to regulate sales, so why wouldn’t Humboldt, Trinity, and Mendocino county residents whose economy depends on pot sales lobby really hard to get legalized pot sales OK’d in those counties and cities within, and regulated in a way that protects the small grower?)
http://blog.norml.org/2010/07/19/californias-prop-19-a-word-for-word-analysis/
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