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Yes on 19 Marijuana Legalization Campaign Poster. (Bolerium Books/LA Weekly)
Proposition 19, the newly numbered California initiative to legalize, tax and regulate cannabis, would lose by a very close margin if the election was held today, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll:
The poll, which has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points, also found that 48 percent of voters would support legalizing marijuana, compared to 50 percent opposed.
While voters who oppose Prop 19 slightly outnumber those who support it , the two-point difference is well within the poll’s margin of error, so the state is effectively evenly split on the issue. The numbers mirror the findings of a poll from the Public Policy Institute of California (PDF) taken back in May. It gave the pro-marijuana legalization side a slight edge, 49-48, also within the poll’s margin of error.
An interesting thing to note in both of these polls is how incredibly few undecideds there are. It seems almost all Californians have already taken at least a tentative initial position on the issue. Previous experience will tell you that persuading people to change their minds one way or the other is often a fairly difficult endeavor.
Prop 19 supporters’ best hope might be to find a way to increase turnout among young people (under-25 voters overwhelmingly favor legalizing marijuana, but tend to vote in very low numbers in midterm elections). If the issue remains this closely divided all the way through to November, Prop 19’s fate could easily rest on whether or not the issue gets young voters politically engaged in higher-than-usual numbers.
23 Comments
I wonder if the dealers will tip the scale towards no. /s
Any plans to organize to go after their vote or GOTV?
in general yes
That sounds vague.
I’m not sure that requires a snark tag!
OT
In an in-your-face move, it seems like cnbc is going to air the movie Wall St over the weekend. “Greed is good.”
I live in the Palm Springs area: this is a great source of idiot anti-19ers. People living in their walled communities and driving their golf carts from hole n to hole n+1 while n is less than 19 and then spending the rest of the day at the 19th hole railing on about how the country’s going to pot.
If only they realized that pot is likely better (and potentially less expensive) for them than the dozen different prescription drugs they’re taking every day . . .
“I wonder if the dealers will tip the scale towards no.”
The prison-industrial complex sure will.
These days, infrastructure spending means buying gates & walls for rich folks.
Revenue, baby. We need it here in CA. Can’t pass a budget due to the Repug superminority (2/3 vote to raise taxes/pass a budget). Repugs here all took a pledge not to raise taxes. Therefore, no additional revenue, ergo, cut, cut, cut.
Teachers, firefighters, police, libraries, state parks. Cut, cut, cut.
No oil depletion allowance neither, unlike Texas and Alaska, both socialist strongholds that tax taking oil out the state’s ground.
Multi-bazillionaire EMeg Moneybucks Whitman already running sleazy commercials trashing her opponent, Jerry Brown. EMeg knows unemployment, she says: SHE sees it every day!
From 30,000 feet in her Lear jet, that is. Looks bad even from up there. She could use a few tokes on the bong pipe — quaker oats foto and all.
Legalized marijuana increases revenue and decreases the drug wars across the border in Mexico. Humboldt County will become a cash cow for growing the stuff. Grow the new bubble we need to get us out of the current depression.
Create marijuana derivatives and get Goldman Sachs in on the action. Naked marijuana default swaps.
Start opium farms while we’re at it, instead of supporting the Taliban who trade it openly under US protection in Afghanistan, too.
Just need to import a different poppy as the state flower and CA is good to go.
Those who wish to contribute to the cause can follow this link. https://secure.taxcannabis.org/page/contribute/50000?source=weareprop19_d
Beginning suggested donation is $19.00.
One reason that may push this issue over the top is the fact that most Cities and Counties have been outlawing Dispensaries in their areas. The closest dispensary to me is about 50 miles away in Santa Barbara and just this week they plan to close 2 more dispensaries leaving only 3 open, but who knows for how long. They had planned to put a ballot on asking to outlaw them completely and still may. The only way to combat those that would stifle the will of the people that voted for MMJ is to just legalize it all.
Ah, but if it passed, would the new governor enforce it? With Jerry Brown’s disparaging remarks in opposition to Prop. 19, and, well, eMeg, if it passes, would they support the Federal or the State law?
Politicians are in bed with the large corporations both state-wide and nationally. Which existing large corporations are going to bat for Prop. 19? Which large corporations are going to spend like drunken sailors to offset the propaganda, not only from the organized opposition, but from politicians with deep pockets and lots of snarky air time (eMeg)?
Getting the youth vote out would be a lot easier if the guy with a D next to his name weren’t acting like the stuck-in-his-ways, old coot grandfather that he apparently is, and his election prospects would be greatly enhanced had he supported the bill. I imagined people voting both yes on 19 and for Brown. I was mistaken. If I was mistaken about him on this issue, I don’t understand the man.
I shan’t be voting for either one of them now, but I plan to vote YES on 19.
Along with the youth vote, there’s plenty of us aging DFH’s in CA who will be going to the polls, and will be glad to vote Yes on 19. Some of us have been growing the stuff in our backyards to supplement paltry Social Security checks already – and can’t produce enough to keep up with the demand from those who happen to learn about our endeavors.
Then there’s the whole aspect of the male plants being jute: the farming possibilities that could either complement or compete with CA’s cotton industry, depending on what our agribusiness persons decide to do with that opportunity.
This sounds like more of a worry wort issue. The polling is of likely voters I’m sure. It will pass all you have to do is not have this mindset (I’m going to punish Washington) and show up to vote. A GOTV using say Current TV and You Tube would likely get High School students out, but most College students would support this weather they smoke or not. There is faction of religious freaks and “straight edge” youth out there, but they are very small and I wouldn’t worry about them.
Just show up, you have plenty of reasons to show up, just do it.
How is Brown going to get out of front of Prop 19 and then look good to pro-police, especially with immigration a hot button issue? He would get slammed by eMeg and the RNC.
This Nov is all about the base of the parties we know that, we just have to convince the few that are so pissed off about Federal Government not to punish the rest of us at the State level.
To be honest this is really it, California can be beacon for the rest of the country to have hope in. We could have done it with Prop 8 but that pig was so badly worded, I’m surprised it was as close as it was.
We need to prove a point; California is a Blue State period, I hope we have learned a lesson from experimenting with so-called moderates like Pete Wilson.
We need to show not only ourselves but also the rest of the country that we can continue to set trends by being progressive and passing Prop 19.
We also have SB710 that looks like it will be ready to be signed by the next Governor.
Stop worrying about polling, polls are for people that are way behind to see how far behind they are. With very little push its still in the margin of error.
You know what to do, VOTE and stop bitching.
Riiiiight. So, any governor with a D by his name is just swell, regardless of his policies or politics? It’s OK for Jerry to OPPOSE Prop. 19 and you think nothing of it? You want to complain I’m “bitching” and should “stop worrying” – should I “be happy,” too? Should I wag my tail?
People who stick their heads in the sand and insult others add nothing to the dialogue.
The “blue” and “progressive” California elected Der Governator, Pete Wilson, Ronald Reagan and is so stuck in the politics of pandering, MEG WHITMAN is the billionaire candidate darling of the local media.
I’m “bitching” about reality. I don’t presume to predict how our splendid chosen candidates are going to behave once they stop pandering to get elected, but I pay attention to what they say publicly to influential people, in order to get there. If you have a crystal ball, please share it with all of us. Until then, if a candidate says, for example, that he’s “not in favor or the public option” when he’s running for office, I shan’t expect him to change his stripes when elected because blogger dhfourmoney thinks he will. But, then again, I suppose I’m just “bitching.”
Why on earth do you guys think it’s progressive to pass Prop 19? There’s nothing in there to regulate marijuana, so cartel grows in CA go on, and executions in Mexico go on. The taxation scheme is twofold: the state is prohibited from taxing it, and all taxation is punted down to cities / counties to determine and collect. So that $1.4 billion in taxes is off the table from the start. 15 years after Prop 215, we still have no statewide way to collect taxes on sales, which are still illegal under the law. With legal pot, same problem. CA cities have to reinvent the wheel and design taxation and regulation jurisdiction by jurisdiction. Talk about wasteful government! I don’t get why this is progressive. Seems insane.
It’s Progressive because of the number of people whose lives will no longer be ruined with a Prison record, not to mention the wasted time in prison and the abuse they suffer there. What is not Progressive about that ?
Just in case you need another reason how about the facts that moved the NAACP to endorse the Prop.? Marijuana prohibition started out racially motivated and it is still affecting minorities in a unbalanced way.
I think it is progressive to be rational. Racism, not reason, historically has triggered drug prohibition in the U.S.
It seems that the prison-industrial complex is indeed at full throttle. Somehow the spigots must be kept open. That seems to be why various law enforcement groups are full bore PR on this issue, with teabagger-level risible statements of social causality – reefer madness is basically their argument. No statistics. No economics. Just fear. Big money will spread the meme.
Christ on a Cracker – of course Jerry Brown is going to come out against it – he needs to get elected (and I’ll be doing my share both at work and in my personal time). It’s long overdue. There is no reasonable reason to not support legalization unless you profit/benefit from the the continued criminalization. But Jerry’s pro-”will of the electorate” and will support it as he was required to support/implement Prop 13 back in his first Gubenatorial incarnation.
My concern however, is that the same old folks who brought us Prop. (h)8 will be demogoging legalization like they demogoged marriage equality.