Californiaâ??s Prop 19: A Word-for-Word Analysis

[WillyNilly]

Well, Vaped, you're certainly consistent.

As a resident of Long Beach, I can tell you that you don't have the facts regarding Measure B, which will tax commercial growers, and not touch medical marijuana, as it would violate the state rules under 19, which CLEARLY says that current medical cannabis laws are inviolate, statewide.

Read the article, and you'll see that things are already in flux. I predict that in the first year, lawyers will win the most money, followed by sellers of growing equipment, then commercial sellers.

The losers will be the medical mafia, and all the money they'll lose because recreational smokers won't need a card or a doctor visit to smoke or grow their own.

Measure B would tax marijuana if voters approve Proposition 19 - Press-Telegram

[leadmagnet]

Zero knows what their saying bro....they are current medical marijuana card holder...they dont have any size limits as proposed by 215

Current card holder will be down sized in space LEGALLY...that doesnt mean all will comply

Dude, I've been a kali med card holder for years now. I also run a collective. 19 will NOT impact how many plants a cardholder (individual with a medical recommendation) can grow.

Jeez, how some of you people read differently into that initiative simply baffles me.

[boaz]

its all in the interpetation

:thumbsup: true. thank you for posting that. I am reading it now and will comment later. :stoned: hope I didn't seem rude earlier.

[WillyNilly]

The California supreme court has already ruled that there is no limit to what medical users and caregivers can grow.

California Supreme Court Bolsters Protection For Marijuana Users : Shots - Health News Blog : NPR

Prop 19 has no effect on 215, 420, or that court ruling. Medical growers can grow as much as they want to. It's already the law.

Medical marijuana profiteers are unhappy that anyone who wants to could grow their own, now, and they wouldn't need a medical card or have to buy from a dispensary.

Anyone 21 or older could possess weed, pipes, etc., and not worry about getting arrested. Bars, coffehouses, or any other businesses could legally sell weed to adults.

This will hurt sales of medical weed because many (if not most) cardholders are recreational users, and don't need marijuana for health reasons.

That's why they're crying. Their little monopoly is about to get smaller if 19 passes.

Want to grow more than a 5x5 plot? Keep your medical card current. Voila! Problem solved!

[VapedG13]

Paragraph 7 states that if a city decides to not tax and regulate Cannabis, then it shall remain illegal to buy and sell Cannabis within the cities limits, BUT it says â??that the city's citizens still have the right to possess and consume small amounts, except as permitted underâ?�, and then it cites 215 and SB 420.

Does this protect medical Cannabis patients right to possess and consume under 215? Yes.

Does it protect their right to cultivate? No, the right to cultivate is not mentioned or protected in that paragraph.


Paragraph 8 is very similar to Paragraph 7, though instead of protecting the right to â??possess and consumeâ?� under 215 and SB 420, it protects the right to â??buy and sellâ?�.

Does this protect the right to cultivate under 215? No, again cultivation is not mentioned.


Section C, Paragraph 1 lists many of the laws which are intended to be limited by Prop 19 and states â??This Act is intended to limit the application and enforcement of state and local laws relating toâ?¦cultivationâ?¦of cannabis, including but not limited to the followingâ?�, the act then fails to list 215.

Does this mean that prop 19 was NOT intended to â??limit the applicationâ?� of 215? No.

The Paragraph clearly states that the laws which are intended to be limited are NOT â??limited to the followingâ??, meaning that the list is NOT exhaustive and COULD include 215

This means that prop 19 does NOT specifically protect 215 from being limited. If prop 19 was NOT intended to limit 215, why wasnâ??t 215 listed in Paragraph 2 of Section C? Does 215 relate to public health? Yes. Is this list intended to be exhaustive? Yes, because unlike in Paragraph 1 of the same Section, Paragraph 2 does not include the phrase â??not limited to the followingâ?�, which means that out of all the laws that were NOT intended to be limited by prop 19, 215 is NOT ONE OF THEM

[greenghost]

i think prop 19 would be a great influence to making money in the state....not to mention it would give other states something to look into.


Can Pot Solve California's Budget?

[VapedG13]

well even if Cali does vote in legal....the battle has just begun:wtf:

Feds oppose Calif. Prop 19 to legalize marijuana

(10-15) 10:14 PDT San Francisco (AP) --

Attorney General Eric Holder says the federal government will enforce its marijuana laws in California even if voters next month make the state the first in the nation to legalize the drug.

The Justice Department strongly opposes California's Proposition 19 and remains firmly committed to enforcing the federal Controlled Substances Act in all states, Holder wrote in a letter to former chiefs of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. The Associated Press obtained a copy of the letter, dated Wednesday.

"We will vigorously enforce the CSA against those individuals and organizations that possess, manufacture or distribute marijuana for recreational use, even if such activities are permitted under state law," Holder wrote.

The attorney general also said that legalizing recreational marijuana in California would be a "significant impediment" to the government's joint efforts with state and local law enforcement to target drug traffickers, who often distribute marijuana alongside cocaine and other drugs.

He said the ballot measure's passage would "significantly undermine" efforts to keep California communities safe.

If Proposition 19 passes in November, California would become the first state to legalize and regulate recreational pot use. Adults could possess up to one ounce of the drug and grow small gardens on private property. Local governments would decide whether to allow and tax sales of the drug.

The state has clashed with federal authorities over marijuana since 1996, when voters approved a first-of-its-kind ballot measure that allowed people to grow and use pot for medical purposes. Thirteen other states and the District of Columbia have legalized medical marijuana.

Under federal law, marijuana is still strictly illegal. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the federal government has the right to enforce its ban regardless of state law.

During the Bush administration, retail pot dispensaries across the state faced regular raids from federal anti-drug agents. Their owners were sometimes sentenced to decades in prison for drug trafficking.

Yet the medical marijuana industry still grew, and has expanded even more since Holder said last year that federal law enforcement would defer to state laws on using it for medicinal purposes.

Some legal scholars and policy analysts have questioned how much the Justice Department could really do on the ground to halt a state-sanctioned recreational pot trade.

Nearly all arrests for marijuana crimes are made at the state level. Of more than 847,000 marijuana-related arrests in 2008, for example, just over 6,300 suspects were booked by federal law enforcement, or fewer than 1 percent.

___

By MARCUS WOHLSEN and PETE YOST, Associated Press Writer
Friday, October 15, 2010

[WillyNilly]

Let's get READY TO RUMBLLLLLLLLE!

It has to start somewhere. :rasta:

[gypski]

There is a greater rush by the spin doctors and other naysayers in the media and present government over a plant and giving adults the freedom of choice of intoxicating substances then there is over going after and putting behind bars the mortgage, financial, and military/industrial complex bandits who put us in this hole in the first place.

It really makes me believe that stoners have a far better grasp on reality then these fucking morons and spin meisters.

Legalized Marijuana in California: Polls Now Show a Close Call

[VapedG13]

this is the problem

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 donâ??t already have, as in the case of possession, or that we can afford to exercise, as in the case of cultivation)â??a choice that will inevitably divide the movement. Will you vote yes on Prop. 19 even if it extinguishes the rights of patientsâ??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. Oaklandâ??s licensing process for commercial vending is prohibitively expensive for ordinary citizens. A license costs $60,000 per yearâ??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 adoptedâ??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 canâ??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:

â??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 potentâ?¦ product that consumers now demand, according to authorities and marijuana dealers on both sides of the border. â?¦ 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.â?�

These mom-and-pop growers donâ??t fit the stereotype of the gang-war era drug pusher or cartel growing irresponsibly and setting forests on fire. â??They are real people, decent people with families to support,â?� said Steve Dâ??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. Theyâ??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 kidsâ?? 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 anotherâ??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. â??Why does this whole new system have to be created?â?� Dâ??Angelo asked at a City Council meeting. â??Letâ??s bring these citizen farmers out of the shadows and into the light and give them a role in this new industry.â?�

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