Thirty-seven years ago, Californians voted on our first Proposition 19 to legalize marijuana. The 1973 version was two paragraphs long and got 33 percent of the vote. The 2010 version was approximately 15 times as long and got 46 percent of the vote. Is this a trend?
Let’s hope not. The complexification of legalization illustrates how many interests have piled onto what used to be a simple goal. Legalization will never be simple again because it’s now about a burgeoning industry, not a plant — and yet that’s the great opportunity that Prop. 19’s failure brings to Humboldt County.
Prop. 19 was written by Oaksterdam potrepreneurs who were among the first to establish commercial relations with their local governments. Humboldt now has a chance to catch up and grow California’s billion-dollar medical marijuana industry based upon the actual motherlode of legalization, 1996’s Proposition 215.
Prop. 215 was crafted by activists and idealists, not businessmen. It created a legal exemption from pot laws for anyone with a doctor’s recommendation for a medical condition. Some consider this a fraudulent get-out-of-jail-free card; more of us are coming to understand that Prop. 215 was also, after 70 years of brazenly discriminatory drug-law enforcement, an equal-opportunity medical thumb that rebalanced the scales of justice.
Prop. 19, on the other hand, contained few ideals beyond legalizing opportunities in a huge industry. Even its supporters (myself included) had a hard time saying what we were supporting. Yet it’s easy to say why we supported whatever it was: 800,000 people are imprisoned in this country every year, and tens of thousands of foreigners are killed every year, because of drug laws that glamorize and enrich lawbreakers. Great institutions are built upon this injustice, such as our prison system, which is now larger than our university system. Small ones also depend on it, such as the rural schools, fire departments and health facilities of Southern Humboldt County.
This is a complicated picture, and these complexities are now upon us. If Prop. 19 had passed, we would be in an immediate race with well-connected city industrialists to produce and promote abundant legal marijuana. And we would be racing against people who wrote their own rules.
Instead, thanks to Prop. 19’s defeat, we have at least two years to do what its backers did first in the Bay Area — create regulatory understandings and relationships for evolving and promoting a blossoming industry. That’s good news. The bad news is that doing the same here will require cooperation and compromise across Humboldt County. I’m confident we can rise to this challenge, which we must understand clearly.
Whether people like it or not, marijuana is the biggest industry in the county. Like any big industry, it has effects both good and bad. Unlike other big industries, its effects aren’t regulated. In fact, they’re barely discussed. It’s a great irony of our present political situation that attempts to regulate Humboldt’s potlands in our General Plan Update and timber production zone guidelines — neither of which even mention the “M” word — have failed spectacularly. One side wants property rights respected but doesn’t particularly care about marijuana. The other side wants strong regulations such as Option A but doesn’t discuss marijuana’s role in making such regulations necessary, pre-empting discussion of mitigation.
Maybe these goals can be discussed openly and honestly now. Maybe building a house on a Timber Production Zone parcel isn’t half the problem that Zonker Harris is: The Doonesbury cartoon character recently told his parents in hundreds of newspapers that he’s moving to Humboldt to grow pot, along with thousands of other recession-driven green-rushers already here and on their way, as publicized in media ranging from the Los Angeles Times to Business Week. There had been no wave of McMansion subdividers when the General Plan controversies erupted, but there is a tidal wave of marijuana subdividers flooding our rural areas right now, while current residents use more water, land and resources every year to grow ever more weed.
What’s our carrying capacity? Is there a breaking point? Is functional planning possible here, or must we, like the people of Mendocino and Arcata before us, respond to the dark side of economic development with a reactive backlash rather than a pro-active plan?
These aren’t theoretical questions. Two weeks ago, after several marijuana ordinance proposals were submitted to the Board of Supervisors, Supervisor Mark Lovelace was assigned to design a comprehensive plan for public input and a process for completing the county’s medical marijuana regulations. He’ll announce the process in January. This delay would have been scary if Prop. 19 had succeeded, because we’d be holding those discussions while sprinting in a fixed race. Since it failed, we have the time we need to conduct countywide discussions of what pot means to our county, and perhaps agree on what we want it to mean. We’re lucky we have time to do this right.
Our discussions will be more interesting than typical policy platitudinizing, because — sorry to state this baldly — no one in government or planning even pretends to know the first thing about the economic base of our county. So who will they learn from? Who will be listened to? Who has a right to participate in these discussions without fear? Who should be fearful? And what are we going to do about Zonker Harris?
Whatever we decide, it’s interesting times ahead for Humboldt County. Pot made its prison break in 1996, and it won’t go back to jail. Whether our society will ever achieve complete legalization as it used to be understood is anyone’s guess, but if that should happen, it’ll be years from now. By then Humboldt can make the most of its historic opportunities of land and brand, building a future worthy of its world-famous yet extremely private enterprise. I hope we make the most of our opportunities now — so we’ll be ready for the next Prop. 19.
Charley Custer is Secretary of the Humboldt Medical Marijuana Advisory Panel (HuMMAP.org) and a founder of Tea House Collective (teahousecollective.org), which offers organically and sustainably grown medical marijuana from Humboldt’s family farms.
This article appears in R.I.P. Prop. 19.
In CA no one goes to jail for possessing less than an ounce of pot and very few people are in prison nationwide for pot possession unless pled down. Pot possession in CA is now an infraction with a $100 ticket and pot use in legal under medical marijuana. Also, a Rand study estimated that legalization in CA would have little effect on drug cartels. Cartels exist because people use illegal drugs, so maybe you should be arguing to those people to stop using them as opposed to arguing that we have to legalize everything that is illegal.
Reply to Dave’s comment.:
Then why not just legalize it. Why go through all this hogwash. The state of WA just banned the sale of Four Loko. Just after there was a mass sale of the product. As soon something is prohibited it is sought after. Just look at the story of Adam and Eve. God talking straight to Adam and Eve said do not touch the fruit of the one tree and look what happened. And they were told by God themselves.Mankind’s will is his own.
The only way to make a dent in prohibition is to use capitol punishment. Good Luck.
shenanigans!
It was a sad day when the growing industry turned its back on the millions of innocent Americans who will now suffer another two years of persecution.
It’s a variation of the crabs-in-a-bucket syndrome. The few crabs that made it out of the bucket like the world as they found it. Never mind that world can only be maintained by keeping the other crabs from escaping.
Hopefully, the slogan for the 2012 effort will be: “Do the right thing!”
As someone who has supported Prop. 19 on my various blogs and other writing projects, I feel safe in saying that arguing against people using drugs is going to be futile. Drug use didn’t start in the 1960s, it’s been going on for hundreds of years in one form or another. Nobody is arguing to make all “illegal” things legal. I didn’t see a proposition pushing the legalization of rape or animal abuse. This is confusing the actual debate.
Treating pot like alcohol will bring with it all the good (less folks in jail, tax dollars) and bad (more corporations profiting off people’s misery). The question is: Does the good outweigh the bad? In this case it does. Prop. 19 was not perfect, but it was the step in the right direction.
First of all, if ever there were to be a way to craft and pass a legalize cannabis bill perfectly for;
“businesses for commercial sale of cannabis”, meaning someone prospering from it, it should be run by those whom choose to from the people that have been working so hard risking everything their whole lives to provide a little consciousness for all those stressed out souls that use the cali herb.
Now, this bator of how growers voting 19 down were voting out of greed!”, HECK, any of us would try and save our livelihood or our jobs, come on, who are they judging like god for?!
a bill must be passed that LETS EVERYTHING STAY THE SAME.
Any people can have stores. all they need to do is file the same permits as any retail business. no higher fees.
Growers can still network. they just have to report sales like any free lance contractor.
Now, for this Mr. Oakland Monopoly AKA (RICHARD LEE & ASSOC., ETC)
Let’s talk his economics Vs. The State of California’s Fiscal Tri-County economics.
He claims the warehouses (Est. 58 pounds a day) would create jobs for oakland, just think of how many jobs would be lost and businesses folding in the Emerald Triangle in comparison!?
As well, huge losses in real estate values in the Triangle would result. on cheaper easier accessable soil would render corporate production of the weed dominate due to the fact that big money controls distribution channels and can afford the infrastructure needed to run commercial pot farms.
mom & pop would be pretty much cooked. maybe one could still position themselves like Dagoba chocolate did with Nestle’s. other than that, I do not see many a mom & pop making the curve. i could be wrong though…
The Triangle county loss might even some how encumber a balance on the yield’s promised on the states newest bond offering, looking forward to 2013. needless to fathom the massive state over ‘mom & pop grower’ shadow economy spending loss.
look, far as it being legal?
I mean, heck, an idiot could see it is better for you than booze just look at what happens if you consume too much booze. you puke or go to the hospital from alcohol poisoning. With smoking the worst, is maybe you wake up on the couch with a bum tummy from domino delivery earlier in the evening.
Crime Statistic Note: since Cannabis has been easier to get from the proliferation of dispensary’s, the rate of violent crime has decreased in southern California by 5+% percent. coincidence? I don’t know…
First of all, if ever there were to be a way to craft and pass a legalize cannabis bill perfectly for;
“businesses for commercial sale of cannabis”, meaning someone prospering from it, it should be run by those whom choose to from the people that have been working so hard risking everything their whole lives to provide a little consciousness for all those stressed out souls that use the cali herb.
Now, this bator of how growers voting 19 down were voting out of greed!”, HECK, any of us would try and save our livelihood or our jobs, come on, who are they judging like god for?!
a bill must be passed that LETS EVERYTHING STAY THE SAME.
Any people can have stores. all they need to do is file the same permits as any retail business. no higher fees.
Growers can still network. they just have to report sales like any free lance contractor.
Now, for this Mr. Oakland Monopoly AKA (RICHARD LEE & ASSOC., ETC)
Let’s talk his economics Vs. The State of California’s Fiscal Tri-County economics.
He claims the warehouses (Est. 58 pounds a day) would create jobs for oakland, just think of how many jobs would be lost and businesses folding in the Emerald Triangle in comparison!?
As well, huge losses in real estate values in the Triangle would result. on cheaper easier accessable soil would render corporate production of the weed dominate due to the fact that big money controls distribution channels and can afford the infrastructure needed to run commercial pot farms.
mom & pop would be pretty much cooked. maybe one could still position themselves like Dagoba chocolate did with Nestle’s. other than that, I do not see many a mom & pop making the curve. i could be wrong though…
The Triangle county loss might even some how encumber a balance on the yield’s promised on the states newest bond offering, looking forward to 2013. needless to fathom the massive state over ‘mom & pop grower’ shadow economy spending loss.
look, far as it being legal?
I mean, heck, an idiot could see it is better for you than booze just look at what happens if you consume too much booze. you puke or go to the hospital from alcohol poisoning. With smoking the worst, is maybe you wake up on the couch with a bum tummy from domino delivery earlier in the evening.
Crime Statistic Note: since Cannabis has been easier to get from the proliferation of dispensary’s, the rate of violent crime has decreased in southern California by 5+% percent. coincidence? I don’t know…
RIK
No. Many growers and dispensary operators were FOR Prop 19. They actually held the good of the country AND their customers over their own personal greed. There is NO justifying voting to continue the persecution of millions of Americans just so you can continue to charge outrageous, astronomical prices.
Those who did that are no better than the Mexican drug gangs.
It’s just a plant.
Except, John, that nobody was arguing about the status of the plant. People were forced into a cornered and heavily “compromised” position regarding all things “just a plant”. It’s a lot more complex than just simply going with the flow and ecking out a baby step toward what everybody knows is the right way to do it. Decriminalization that just passed, for example, is FAR MORE LENIENT than prop. 19 would have been for many people, none of whom would have been given any retrospective amnesty after prop. 19 anyway. Does that make any sense whatsoever to you?
It IS about marijuana being “just a plant”. I won’t vote to turn that plant into an exclusive cash crop for people who have enough money to bribe the state to let them do it, while still punishing everybody else just the same. It boiled down to that for many, because, like so many are correctly saying, the proposition WASN’T FAIR for the very people who were being made to believe it catered to them. Prop. 19 was a business transaction, much like Measure N on our local ballot. Much ado for and about the people who purchased its spot on the ballot, but nobody was to reap any rewards but them. It was bought and paid for HYPE.
Think about this: it’s not uncommon whatsoever for a multi-million dollar company to spend a few million on a FIELD STUDY to plan their future investments, etc. Again, prop. 19 is pretty identical in this sense to our own local Measure N. The proprietors of prop. 19 are already making hundreds of millions of dollars in this and other states (just like the proprietors of measure N) and would very much like to expand their own business to bring in more money.
A ballot initiative is a fantastic field study, a business interest can even convince people to give them money to conduct their study. And again, as far as actual persecution of marijuana growers and smokers goes, proposition 19 WOULD NOT have made their cases any easier and WOULD NOT have released anybody from incarceration and WOULD NOT have put more money into local pockets except by a wishy washy way of describing a sudden volunteer system that could and would be forcibly maintained.
There was never any intent for proposition 19 to pass, but for its authors to collect the data, collect millions in “donations” and kick up their celebrity at the same time. Really, look into it.
Voters were blindsided by mixed feelings from public persuasion, not anything close to a proposition that would finally “legalize marijuana”.
Dear John
Sorry, but that’s just dishonest. The main thing Prop 19 would have done is to END the arrest – or even citations – of adults who have less than an ounce of marijuana. It also allowed home growing.
This proposition was not perfect, but none could be at this point. The voters aren’t ready for the “perfect” one yet. Prop 19 also wouldn’t have cast marijuana policy in stone. It would just be the beginning. Policy would continue to be fine-tuned until we reached the optimimum one, just like we did with alcohol after ending ITS prohibition.
Probably MOST importantly, Prop 19 would have broken the ice for many other states to follow – which will result in ending ALL of the fraud of marijuana prohibition nationally.
Now, because of misguided people like you, we will have to wait another two years. That’s a lot of suffering just to keep your prices ridiculously high.
There’s NO excuse for any knowledgeable person to have voted no on 19.
Congratulations on a fine brainwashing, John Thomas. Multimillionaires came together and told you not only what to think, but what to think of everybody who doesn’t think on the same side of THEIR yes-or-no line as you. Your neighbors are still the same people as last year, right? Do you have children? You are aware that current decriminalization applies to ALL AGES, correct? Whereas prop. 19 would have mandated strict punishment (read mandatory sentences, permanent criminal record etc) for anybody and everybody under 21, as well as any and all adults AND PARENTS of those “children” under 21. Creating a future of parolees, nothing short of generations of broke and busted marijuana smokers with a record, is not what moving forward is about (people under 21 do smoke LOTS of marijuana, you realize that?) This is a fraction of the greater argument against Proposition 19, which is NOT an argument against truely and fairly legalizing marijuana for EVERYBODY not just the rich people who have made you think it’s either THEIR yes or no but really don’t give a shit either way, they just want the MONEY that their propositionary bribe gives them access to.
Proposition 19 was about creating a polar demographic, the one to which you, John Thomas, now subscribe.
CAN you DIG the CAPS? It MAKES the POINT so much MORE VALID YES! OR NO! YOU DECIDE IT WILL DETERMINE WHO YOU ARE AS A HUMAN BEING VOTE NOW!
Caps don’t make your point better. They just make it more loudly wrong.
You totally ignored the fact that Prop 19, or ANY measure, would not have cast marijuana policy in stone. It was just the beginning, and would have continued to be fine-tuned until reaching its OPTIMUM form. It was NOT the sponsor’s legislation. It was the peoples.
NORML is a decades-old, trusted org that backed Prop 19. See their analysis of Prop 19 here:
http://blog.norml.org/2010/07/19/californias-prop-19-a-word-for-word-analysis/
Your crocodile tears for allowing minors to consume marijuana doesn’t ring true, sorry.
Dear John Thomas, you are blaming your neighbors for something neither of you had any say in whatsoever to begin with. Until you can grasp that, go forth and prosper or whatever it is you think you’re doing. For some strange reason, people who grasp the concept of what the proposition was and is, don’t care whether somebody checked one box or the other on their piece of paper, or even neither. Maybe one day I’ll have 100 million dollars in the bank and a few friends in the state capital, I will gladly openly demonstrate the power of public persuasion through my money. Maybe one day.
Sounds to me like you’re jealous Lee had the money to conduct a campaign. That’s petty. ANY campaign needs money or it just won’t work. The greedy growers have constructed all kinds of conspiracy theories to justify their willingness to continue the persecution of their “customers.” They don’t fly.
You folks just need to accept the reality that the bizarre blip in time where you could legally charge black market prices is over.
“Sounds to me like you’re jealous Lee had the money to conduct a campaign. That’s petty.”
“You folks…”
You’re more than just naive, you’re a bigot.
Normally, I don’t respond to flaming, but that’s the first time in 14 years of Internet discussions I’ve ever been called a bigot.
Would you like to explain how you came up with that?
The last comment was mine.
“Would you like to explain how you came up with that?”
It was in response to your repeated assertions, the dialog is still there. “You folks”? “Voters aren’t ready”? “the growing industry has turned its back on the millions of innocent Americans who will now suffer”??? I don’t care to continue with you, sorry.
Neither “you folks,” nor “voters aren’t ready,” nor “the growing industry has turned its back, etc.” constitute bigotry. They are simple, objective observations.
You need to get a dictionary.
Continue or not. The truth remains.
John Thomas belongs to a brainwashed sect of society that lends more credibility to what mass media says than the living breathing people around him.
Tom Johnas
No. The mass media was on your side, of course. They were parroting your overblown charges of Prop 19 being badly written. You shouldn’t diss your allies like that.
I have been discussing/debating marijuana policy on the Internet, in the best forums since 1996. What those around me say is clearly important.
That does not mean I can’t, or shouldn’t expose dishonesty or faulty logic when it’s appropriate.
I always will. The truth is marijuana reform’s best friend.
John, the reason NORML, MPP and other reform organizations oiginally opposed Richard Lee’s scheme (though they signed on after he hired his signature gatherers) is that it was written more for his benefit than the state’s. That’s how it was ‘badly written.’
I voted for Prop 19 like you did, for the country and the world. But I didn’t think it was good for Humboldt or California, because it was written to reward the tiny handful of potrepreneurs who were already out of their grow closets and in bed with their local politicians. People have every right and reason to be skeptical of such people’s motives. You might try it yourself, it will help you to understand why Prop 19 failed. The next effort must have more ideals and inclusion, and less privileged business advantage. And for God’s sake it should stop putting people in jail!
John Tomas, your conclusions of the post-19 big picture are exactly what the media has been feeding you, not the living breathing people around you.
It appears you don’t read the mainstream media, since, as already noted, they were on YOUR side against Prop 19.
The people are what I’m all about. And protecting them from greedy growers who fight to continue their persecution is one of my principle focuses.
The greedy growers have set marijuana reform back TWO YEARS for cruel, selfish purposes.
John Thomas aka Johnas 11:59 please describe the “grow industry” as you put it, as well how proposition 19 came to be. Some people would like to know a bit about where your backwards thinking comes from.
J-whatever, you’re proving the original charge of bigotry. Anyone prejudiced enough to believe that growers mostly hiding under rocks changed the outcome of the election even here in Humboldt, let alone statewide, would obviously rather have scapegoats than understanding. Enjoy yourself, bigot.
I’d say Richard Lee set himself back by writing such a self-interested pander to any power that might give his business plan a leg up. His initiative kept putting people in jail, remember?! Where are the ideals in that? I voted for the stinker but couldn’t help seeing through it. Look harder, John.
Longwind: It’s hard to imagine a legalization measure that wouldn’t give Lee a leg up, no? He’s ready. We mostly aren’t.
Two neighbors get along great for decades, then there’s an election and one of them has a sign with the name of a candidate the other doesn’t like in his yard. Suddenly, the one neighbor believes the other to be responsible for widespread suffering and their friendly ties are severed forever.
Sure, Lee is already up the ladder. Where he needn’t even step on the fingers of people who are afraid to establish commercial relations with their local governments like he’s got. If his initiative had made coming out of the grow closet to local politicians for a meeting of minds less necessary, his competition would be less disadvantaged.
Remember what Mark Lovelace says, that most politicians in California still can’t even say the word ‘marijuana’ out loud. It’s hard to write a medical marijuana business plan with them on that basis. That was Lee’s enormous advantage, which his initiative leveraged to the max. As the French say, business is business.
Oaksterdamn et al want to exploit the bejeezus out of marijuana’s illegality in other states, as well as its would-be fuzzy legal status in California, as they’re currently doing. They want to grow exponentially more marijuana themselves in california, and take full advantage of people who can’t in other states. Oaksterdamn hasn’t lowered marijuana prices at all in California. In fact, they now charge $100 an eighth for some of it, while simultaneously paying the growers who provide it even less than before. Their fortune was made by, and they continue to make hundreds of millions of dollars every year from the guise of helping medicinal patients who need it.
The following is a direct quote from a Journal interview, said sarcastically by the person who brought you Proposition 19, of what the people want:
“It should just be free for everybody to grow! Peace and love!”
Again, he said that sarcastically with every intention of mocking everybody who really wants to legalize marijuana.
what?
I’m not here to write an essay. Ask me a specific question, and I’m happy to answer it.
longwind
It wasn’t just growers, of course. It was dispensaries, all the businesses that support them, and all the people whose real estate soared in value – not just in Humboldt, but all over the state. Bigots dislike people for who they are. I dislike people who do bad things. That’s not bigotry. That’s valid moral discernment.
What’s wrong with him making some money from risking millions of dollars? As we see, now all that money spent yielded him nothing. That’s entrepreneurship.
Not responsible adult consumers and vendors. Perhaps the punishment was too severe for older minors, but it’s clear that with re-legalization, the whole climate would be changed and the hysteria drained out. I doubt if cops would spend any time chasing 20-year-old tokers.
Once again, Prop 19 would not have cast marijuana policy in stone. It would have been just the beginning. Policy would continue to be fine-tuned until it reached its optimum form, just like we did with alcohol after ending ITS prohibition.
Because of those against 19, we now have to wait another two years to make that beginning. Thousands of people will suffer needlessly because of that.
reality
Two candidates running for office is a far different scenario than voting on whether to re-legalize marijuana or not. There can NEVER be any justification for voting against ending the persecution. Nobody’s income that’s built on that suffering is worth preserving.
More Reality
And I suppose none of the other growers would do the same if they were in his shoes. This is a capitalist system. There are winners and losers. If you prefer some other system, work to change it, or move somewhere that has something closer to what you want.
I’m not interested in what you think are Lee’s “ulterior motives.” I’ll go with the information from the horse’s mouth. Ultimately, it didn’t matter who sponsored it, or any of the fuzzy details. This initiative may have been started by Lee, but it soon belonged to the people. It was a natural move based on many years of growing support and successes of marijuana reform.
It would have freed marijuana consumers. Those who fought against it were very misguided or blinded by greed.
Um, John? About this ‘greedy grower’ thing you went off on, eventually explaining “It wasn’t just growers, of course. It was dispensaries, all the businesses that support them, and all the people whose real estate soared in value – not just in Humboldt, but all over the state.” Why doesn’t that include a certain potrepreneur whose personal investment in a failed campaign resembles Meg Whitman’s?
And John? About this potrepreneur’s failed business plan, you ask “What’s wrong with him making some money from risking millions of dollars?” How is it you’re “not interested in what you think are Lee’s “ulterior motives,” but so free to slag the motives of far less profit-making dopesters? Why are his ulterior motives off-limits, while many thousands of people you don’t know anything about are ‘greedy’?
Um, John? Maybe you’d better just punch back into the Oaksterdam business office and file for awhile. It’ll ground you in something real.
“Those who fought against it” wanted freedom for marijuana, not just Oaksterdam (and sure, some are as greedy as Lee appears to be). Take it from someone who didn’t fight against it. Lee blew off advice and cooperation, and got his come-uppance. I’m glad his money built momentum for real legalization next time around.
longwind
Because he didn’t fight against re-legalization, of course. I have no problem with the many growers and dispensaries who did not oppose Prop 19. They had enough ethics to realize they need to change their business so it doesn’t rest on the persecution of millions of innocent Americans.
For the same reason as above. Again, it is not the “greed” that bothers me. It’s the blind, callous greed that caused many growers to oppose the people’s legislation to end the fraudulent marijuana prohibition.
I’d love to work there. But it’s not possible, thanks.
Baloney. They didn’t want freedom at the cost of losing their outrageously exorbitant prices.