Pubdate: Sat, 07 Dec 2013
Source: Kamloops Daily News (CN BC)
Copyright: 2013 Kamloops Daily News
Contact:  http://www.kamloopsnews.ca/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/679
Cited: Sensible BC: http://www.sensiblebc.ca
Page: C1

PETITION ALL SMOKED OUT

Today is Sensible B.C.'s deadline to hand in its petition to force a 
vote on decriminalizing marijuana in B.C.

If they don't bother sending it in, don't blame it on the organizers 
being too buzzed and forgetting - it's just that there would be no point.

The initiative required about 400,000 signatures - 10 per cent of the 
eligible voters in each of B.C.'s 85 electoral districts in a 90-day 
period - to get onto a ballot in next November's municipal elections 
across the province, and Sensible B.C. has barely half that many 
according to the most optimistic projections.

Here in Kamloops, the campaign also never got close, with about half 
the signatures required in each of our two ridings.

Campaign director Dana Larsen has blamed the onerous process required 
by law to force a vote, as well as a lack of organization in some 
ridings, but assigned most of the blame to the stigma around use of the drug.

"There's a lot of people who would tell us they support what we're 
doing and they're behind us but they don't want to sign because 
they're afraid they'll lose their job, they're afraid that they can't 
cross the border, they're afraid the RCMP will get this list," Larsen 
said in The Huffington Post.

"I didn't anticipate that level of fear of engaging in the political 
process." Really? That's one way of looking at it. There is, of 
course, the possibility that not enough people actually want to 
decriminalize it. Answering a public opinion poll or clicking "Like" 
on a Facebook page is one thing: going out and signing a petition 
that will actually change the way the law on marijuana possession is 
enforced is a more serious step, one that clearly not enough people 
felt comfortable taking.

And the process is supposed to be onerous for that very reason - to 
ensure that people are serious about making the change that's called for.

The petition to kill the HST, for instance, managed to overcome 
exactly the same hurdles Sensible B.C. faced.

The organizers behind Sensible B.C. can blame the process, the 
organization or the stigma all they want - that's democracy. But a 
failed initiative is also democracy working, whether you like the result or not.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom