Pubdate: Fri, 24 Sep 2010 Source: Ventura County Star (CA) Copyright: 2010 The E.W. Scripps Co. Contact: http://www.vcstar.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/479 Author: Zeke Barlow Cited: Proposition 19 http://yeson19.com/ Bookmark: http://mapinc.org/find?272 (Proposition 19) THOSE FOR AND AGAINST PROPS 19 AND 23 SPEAK AT OXNARD EVENT No matter if advocates were arguing whether or not to decriminalize marijuana or debating whether or not to go forward with California's attempts to curb greenhouse gases, the root of all arguments came down to numbers. How many jobs will a proposition create? How many will it destroy? How many people smoke marijuana every day? How much would legalized marijuana cost the healthcare industry? At a Thursday debate on propositions 23 and 19 put on by the Ventura County Civic Alliance and the League of Women Voters of Ventura County at California Lutheran University's Oxnard facility, passion over the issues ran high as advocates for both sides of the issues tried to persuade the roughly 30 people in the audience to vote their way on Nov. 2. After each side made an opening statement, the audience asked questions read by moderator Timm Herdt, the Star's Sacramento bureau chief. Damian Jones with the Proposition 23 measure, which would suspend AB 32, a law that would reduce greenhouse gases to 1990 levels by 2020, led off the discussion. The bill would postpone implementation of the law until the state has unemployment at or below 5 percent for four consecutive quarters. "Proposition 23 is not about AB 32, it's about a different number and that number is 12.2 percent," he said. Jones argued that when the state is facing 12.2 percent unemployment, it is not the time to put more regulations on businesses. He said businesses would suffer under the new law. When asked why the biggest financial backers of the law were Texas oil companies, he said that like many other companies that do business in California, they, too, have an interest in what happens the state. He argued that his proposition is not about debating climate change, but whether this is the right time to regulate the pollution that causes it. "Not right now, not right here, not at this time," he said in his closing statements. But Sen. Fran Pavley, who wrote the bill and defended it at Thursday's debate, argued that is precisely the right time to implement the bill. She said that $10 million dollars in new venture capital money has come into the state since the bill passed in 2006 and that as the clean energy jobs market expands, the jobs are going to come to California. She cited three alternative fuel car companies that are building facilities in the state. AB 32 is a cornerstone of the state's green economy and the jobs that would come with it, she said. "How we create jobs in a global economy is directly relevant on voting now on Proposition 23," she said. When Jones argued that California would be the only state with such a law while others continued to pollute, Pavley said California has often been the leader in clean air laws, including increased fuel efficiency and installing catalytic converters. "California is in the unique place in time to make a difference," she said. Next came the debate over Proposition 19, which would make it legal for people 21 and older to possess one ounce of marijuana. Individual jurisdictions would have the right to allow it to be sold or not. Lisa Sawoya argued that much like alcohol prohibition failed, so have the current marijuana laws. She said that while Mexican drug cartels control much of the current marijuana market and law enforcement officials nationally arrested 61,000 people for marijuana possession last year, more than 100 million Americans said they tried the drug. "You must agree that cannabis prohibition has not worked," she said. She argued that passing the proposition will create jobs and generate billions in tax dollars. People are going to smoke marijuana if it's legal or not, so it is better to be regulated and taxed, she argued. But Alexandra Datig said that making marijuana legal would increase drugged driving and lead to more serious drug use and increased health costs. She said it is a gateway drug in which people will start smoking marijuana and eventually move onto harder drugs. She said that when the state has financial problems, more people smoking pot is not a good thing. "Being broke and stoned in the state that California is in doesn't fly with me," she said. "We have better things to do than get stoned. This is not an innocent drug." - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake