Decriminalization YES!...PROP 19 NO!

11310.1. (a) It is lawful and not a violation of California law
for a person 21 years of age or older to personally possess, process,
share, or transport not more than 16 ounces of marijuana solely for
the individual's consumption and not for resale.

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11311.2. This article shall not apply to the medical use of
marijuana which is regulated by Section 11362.5 and Article 2.5
(commencing with Section 11362.7).

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NLNo5 said:

If I was making a living as a drug dealer then I'd be pretty pissed if the drugs suddenly became legal.

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mccumcumber said:

I'll quote some of the goodies.

11310.1. (a) It is lawful and not a violation of California law
for a person 21 years of age or older to personally possess, process,
share, or transport not more than 16 ounces of marijuana solely for
the individual's consumption and not for resale.

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Prop. 19 forces voters to choose between the rights of patients and the rights of recreational users (although we have seen that it will not provide any rights that we either don’t already have, as in the case of possession, or that we can afford to exercise, as in the case of cultivation)—a choice that will inevitably divide the movement. Will you vote yes on Prop. 19 even if it extinguishes the rights of patients—the group of marijuana consumers we should most protect?

Prop. 19 aims to eliminate the black market for marijuana. But it could have the unintended consequence of expanding the black market, because by encouraging exorbitant licensing fees, it would push currently legitimate growers underground.

Currently, anyone with a Prop. 215 recommendation can legally provide marijuana. Under Prop. 19, however, only licensed vendors may distribute marijuana. Although specific licensing arrangements are left up to local governments, Oakland, birthplace of the initiative, has already set the precedent for what other cities will likely follow. Oakland’s licensing process for commercial vending is prohibitively expensive for ordinary citizens. A license costs $60,000 per year—not to mention the application process itself, which is so rigorous that even well-established, law-abiding dispensaries have been denied. Furthermore, Oakland has started a trend that every other city preparing for the possibility of Prop. 19 has adopted—capping the number of licensed dispensaries allowed to operate (in Oakland, that number is four. Conveniently, Richard Lee, the millionaire businessman behind the initiative, owns one of them). A commercial cultivation license is even more prohibitive. The application fee alone is $5,000, a license costs an astronomical $211,000 annually, and only six are allotted. This all but guarantees that average, small-time, legal growers will be shut out of this multibillion-dollar industry and forced underground, expanding the black market that has been consistently dwindling since the passage of Prop. 215 created a legitimate marijuana industry.

These growers, who have invested tens of thousands of dollars creating these presently legal, home-based businesses, are not likely to tear down their grow rooms and apply for a job working the cash register at a dispensary. If they can’t afford the expensive licensing fees that would enable them to participate legally in the green market, it is much more likely that they will take their business to the black market underground, creating the opposite effect of what Prop. 19 intends to do.

Another explicit purpose of Prop. 19 is to limit the viability of Mexican drug cartels. But the reality is that these cartels are already being undermined tremendously, thanks to the legions of small-time farmers growing in California legally since 1996. The Washington Post reports:

“Almost all of the marijuana consumed in the multibillion-dollar U.S. market once came from Mexico or Colombia. Now as much as half is produced domestically, often by small-scale operators who painstakingly tend greenhouses and indoor gardens to produce the more potent… product that consumers now demand, according to authorities and marijuana dealers on both sides of the border. … Stiff competition from thousands of mom-and-pop marijuana farmers in the United States threatens the bottom line for powerful Mexican drug organizations in a way that decades of arrests and seizures have not, according to law enforcement officials and pot growers in the United States and Mexico.”

These mom-and-pop growers don’t fit the stereotype of the gang-war era drug pusher or cartel growing irresponsibly and setting forests on fire. “They are real people, decent people with families to support,” said Steve D’Angelo, owner of Harborside Health Center, the largest and most profitable marijuana dispensary in the world, which buys cannabis from more than 400 small-time farmers. They’re the people you see shopping at your local organic health food store, putting much-needed cash directly into the local economy while the national economy flounders in recession They use the money they earn from providing medicine to finance their kids’ education, help out their laid-off parents and put themselves through school. In some cases, entire communities depend on them.

However, if this initiative passes, these growers that are single-handedly undercutting the Mexican drug cartels would no longer be able to legally operate, and we might end up exchanging one cartel for another—a corporate cartel that would leave a spate of displaced marijuana farmers in its wake. Are corporations inherently evil? No. But if we have the option to keep millions of dollars in our own communities, spread out over hundreds of thousands of people, it hardly seems sensible to outsource this employment to corporations and into the hands of a few. “Why does this whole new system have to be created?” D’Angelo asked at a City Council meeting. “Let’s bring these citizen farmers out of the shadows and into the light and give them a role in this new industry.”

But under Prop. 19, the marijuana industry will not be a free market in which everyone has a chance to compete. Instead, it would mark the beginning of the corporatization of cannabis

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Willto420 said:

I voted yes on prop 19 yesterday on my mail in ballot.

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Serapis said:

Some of the arguments aginst 19 are ridiculous, like the under 21 catch. You can't drink under 21 either... duh....

A prop that makes growing legal for all? WTH not? Cause your customers learn to grow their own? Heaven forbid people be allowed to carry an ounce on them. Many of us in other states face a year or more for the same infraction. And you are going to whine about taxation on marijuana?

Go ahead and vote no and kick back and wait to see how long it is before another prop comes along. Even if prop 20 came up in 2012, the state can still tax it. Your arguments are baseless.

Vote YES on 19!! It is a STEP in the right direction.

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dirrtyd said:

One question for everyone who said yes in this thread. How many of you honestly get high with someone under twentyone currently? If you do and this passes you can go to jail. Currently you wouldnt so tell me where is the no brainer. You are actually adding more laws than you alredy have. with this. dirrtyd

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