I can tell you with 100% certainty that the only reason that vote failed was because of growers and dealers in Cali. In the time coming up to the vote, and after the vote I can't tell you how many people on various forums, and articles I read about it admitted to it. There are sooo many growers and dealers that "would loose my job" or "loose so much of my profits" that many of them voted against full legalization. You can do your own research into it, but it didn't seem like any one was keeping it a secret. I think its terrible, and bad example of our community. People need to grow weed not greed!
Yeah, probably a significant number of people working in the MMJ industry (legal and illegal) voted against legalization for the reasons you suggest, because illegal weed and strict MMJ regulation keeps prices high. There were also legitimate MJ proponents who voted against it, because they though it would weaken protection for MMJ, permit stricter local regulation, and increase tax burdens.
Of course if you look at the cannabis boards, you're going to get the impression that these things are what made the difference, but mathematically I just don't think it can be true.
Remember, the proposal lost by 7 full points. . .it wasn't even close. The official final tally for CA prop 19 was 5,333,230 votes against vs 4,643,592 for a net loss by over 689,000 votes. That margin of loss almost certainly exceeds the total number of individuals who work in the CA MMJ industry, and of course there were still probably plenty of people who do who still voted for it. Incidentally, currently there are 18 million registered to vote in CA. . .a lot of people sat out that vote!
You can argue about how harmful legalization would be for the current MMJ industry (in my opinion, it wouldn't at all end it. . .all the ones currently buying MMJ from dispensaries aren't suddenly going to STOP buying it because they don't need a card anymore, and there would be a whole new market created for non-card holders, including out of state residents), but that's a separate discussion.
If you want the best explanations of why this failed, you can read some fairly good ones here:
http://theweek.com/article/index/208909/why-did-prop-19-fail-6-theories
http://www.newser.com/story/104498/why-proposition-19-failed.html
http://www.aolnews.com/2010/11/03/whom-or-what-to-blame-for-prop-19s-epic-fail/
I think the first article pretty much nails it. With cannabis already decriminalized, the biggest incentive non-smokers had to vote for legalization was gone; mid term elections were just a bad time for this, since the voting demographic skews much more heavily towards older anti-pot voters, rather than younger pro-pot ones; and this particular referendum was also opposed by every big-name CA politician, including both Senators and the Governor.
Whether or not something like this can pass again in CA in a few years time remains to be seen. I think if CO and WA don't have serious problems with their legalization efforts, the chances of other States (including CA) adopting similar measures improve.
But the main point related to this thread is just that you can't expect customs to stop seizing cannabis ceeds until importation of them is legalized. That simply isn't going to happen until/unless the Federal controlled substances act is amended, and even then importation of ceeds may still be banned. Meanwhile, as a measure of national sentiment, if even liberal pro-pot States like CA can't legalize, the chance of this happening at a Federal level is zero.
Bottom line is, on a policy level, legal importation of beans isn't even on the radar screen. If it happens at all, that kind of thing is probably 20 years off. On the other hand, with slowly increasing domestic legalization on a State level, domestic availability of beans is probably only going to increase. Over the next ten years, it very well may be possible for small seed-banks to open in certain States, where any adult can walk in with cash and out with beans. That's already the case in some places if you've got an MMJ card. Small banks like this can't possibly offer the same selection as something like "Attitude", though they wouldn't need to. . .20 types of high quality beans from 3-4 breeders would be plenty, and many/most of them could even be produced locally.