Pubdate: Tue, 16 Nov 2010
Source: Orange County Register, The (CA)
Copyright: 2010 The Orange County Register
Contact:  http://www.ocregister.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/321
Author: Alan Bock, Senior editorial writer, the Orange County Register

LEGAL MARIJUANA: NOT IF, BUT WHEN

Prop. 19 wasn't the end of the debate over legalizing marijuana.

For once, it was a real beginning.

One might have expected the principals of the Proposition 19 campaign 
to partially decriminalize marijuana possession and use to be a 
little chagrined in the wake the initiative's 54-46 loss after it had 
maintained a narrow but reasonably steady lead in the polls until a 
couple of weeks before Election Day. But in two teleconferences in 
which I participated after the election, they were remarkably upbeat, 
celebrating Prop. 19 as the proposal that finally brought marijuana 
legalization into the mainstream, garnering mostly favorable news 
coverage worldwide that significantly advanced the debate over 
marijuana legalization.

Bottom line? This campaign is at the beginning rather than at the 
end. Expect a similar proposal on the ballot in California, and 
possibly in other western states.

Ethan Nadelmann, longtime executive director of the Drug Policy 
Alliance, a national reform organization with state affiliates, 
summed up the sentiment of most advocates when he said that marijuana 
legalization is not a matter of if, but when.

A little background may put the current era of good feelings in some context.

Proposition 19 was not put forward by what we might call the drug 
reform establishment -- organizations like the Drug Policy Alliance, 
the National Organization for Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) and 
the Marijuana Policy project, that have been around for years or decades.

Medical marijuana entrepreneur and patient Richard Lee supervised 
writing it and qualifying it for the ballot.

Lee runs dispensaries in Oakland and formed what he calls Oaksterdam 
University to train people (for a fee) in expanding the availability 
of medical marijuana (growing, running dispensaries, being a 
caregiver, etc.) in compliance with California laws. He put about 
$1.5 million of his own money into the effort.

When I talked to Richard Lee last year after Prop. 19 had been 
qualified, he told me that other activists were dubious, arguing that 
2012 would be a year with a better chance of success. However, he 
said, he knew a lot of on-the-ground activists (the grassroots, so to 
speak), who were champing at the bit to be involved in some kind of 
political action and didn't want to wait two years to do something 
meaningful. Even if the proposition lost, he said, activists would 
have gained practical experience, advocates would know more about 
honing their debating points, and the discussion would have been advanced.

Ethan Nadelmann, who acknowledged that he had tried to dissuade 
Richard Lee from going for 2010, now thinks he was right to push the 
timetable. There has been a "stupendous transformation in the 
discussion," he said, statewide, nationwide and around the world.

The president of Colombia took note, and suggested that if Prop. 19 
passed, it might lead to change in approaches to drug problems in 
Latin America. Former Mexican president Vicente Fox publicly hoped 
that Prop. 19 would pass (though current president Felipe Calderon 
did not). As it was, Prop. 19 got more votes than either Meg Whitman 
or Carly Fiorina (neither of whom said much of anything on 19 one way 
or another), despite spending no money on paid advertising. A third 
of Whitman voters supported Prop. 19, suggesting there is support for 
decriminalization across the political spectrum.

Orange County's own retired Judge James P. Gray went so far as to say 
that advocates of decriminalization have won -- that implementation 
of some form of legalization has been delayed, but the outcome is no 
longer in doubt.

If the discussion is now open to be conducted in a reasonably fair 
manner, the advocates of prohibition will not stand a chance.

Further discussion will highlight the hypocrisy of current policies: 
The last three presidents publicly acknowledged that they had smoked 
marijuana, yet they achieved a modicum of success. Would being 
arrested or jailed have helped their careers or their personal situations?

A still little-acknowledged fact is the growing participation of 
high-level law enforcement and judicial system officials (mostly 
retired, to be sure, but some still on active duty) in the drug 
reform movement.

The post-Prop. 19 teleconferences included former LAPD Deputy Chief 
Stephen Downing, Diane Goldstein, who retired as a lieutenant after 
22 years with the Redondo Beach Police Department, and Dr. Norm 
Stamper, who served 24 years in the San Diego Police Department 
before becoming chief of police in Seattle. Stephen Downing said he 
planned to spend the next two years talking with and persuading 
current law enforcement people to speak out on prohibition, while 
Norm Stamper said all that is really needed is to get police officers 
to start saying in public what many are already saying in private -- 
that the drug war is a failure that drains law enforcement resources 
from more important activities.

All the participants are sure some kind of cannabis relegalization 
measure will be on the 2012 ballot, when more younger voters than 
showed up in 2010 are likely to vote. Meanwhile, all the reform 
organizations will be working with San Francisco Assemblyman Tom 
Ammiano, who introduced a bill in the state legislature -- which 
actually got approved by one committee but never came before the full 
house -- to see what reform measures might gain legislative approval.

Ethan Nadelmann said to expect both initiative and legislative 
efforts in several western states, with Oregon, Washington, Nevada, 
Colorado and Alaska being the most likely candidates. Reform 
measures, from limited medical marijuana statutes to full 
legalization, have at least found legislative sponsors in several 
states without the initiative process.

Anna Greenberg of the polling and public relations firm Greenberg 
Quinlan Rosner said a poll of Californians who had already voted 
suggests that some form of legalization is "poised to win" in 2012. 
On the simple question of legalization (apart from Prop. 19), 50 
percent supported the idea and nearly half (including a quarter of 
those who voted no) believe legalization is inevitable. Some 52 
percent believe marijuana laws do more harm than good. Nothing is 
assured in politics, but recent trends suggest the number favoring 
legalization will rise, as it has every year since the 1980s.

Hope you're not tired of hearing about the issue. If anything, 
discussion will increase in intensity and frequency in the next 
couple of years. 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake