I talked with Roger Goodman of the King County Bar Association Drug Policy, in Washington (he worked to make small marijuana crimes the lowest level priority enforcement in Seattle. He said the reason that Denver had so much success with its recent battle to legalize up to one once for personal use in the city, was because the campaign came out of nowhere and their was no time for personality conflicts on the legalization side. He said lots of time those who want to legalize have their own views of how it should work and the level of fame they want, this is a problem because then you run in circles around each other and get nothing done. This is the reason all states don't have medical marijuana. Because the "old hippie" generation that has been doing this for the last 20 years all have their own visions of medical marijuana and fame. In Denver, two guys had this idea and they did it. Not an organization got together and discussed and voted on what to do.
In Denver they only used one controversial billboard, a picture of a women who had just been badly beaten in domestic violence with a caption like "Do you want this?" Their message was that cannabis is a safer alternative to alcohol and if alcohol is legal and it causes so much damage than why is cannabis, that doesn't cause that damage illegal. And they won; the vote was 54% in favor. Close call, but controversial methods.
It is insane alcohol is legal and marijuana isn't. Yet the poll numbers show that americans don't support full legalization, for now. But the polls do show that about 80% nationwide for medical and near that in every state (78% Utah). So why then does cannabis remain illigal for medical use? Idiots in our dumb government.

Chris