Why You Must Vote Yes on California Prop 64

The realization came to me while I was thinking about a completely different proposition on the ballot this year. We were getting all sorts of mailers about how, if 56 is passed, it’s going to take money from starving children, ruin Christmas forever, and worse…make “special interests” RICH.

My first instinct was outrage, and if it wasn’t that I knew that this is precisely what these mailers are intended to do — create an emotional reaction to stop you from thinking critically — I might have voted against it in that instant.

Instead, I used my brain to read the fine print at the bottom, to see who had paid for it. Tobacco companies! They’re trying to get a new tax on cigarettes blocked, on the grounds that somebody else is going to make some money on the deal and the tax money isn’t going directly to school children. As if Big Tobacco doesn’t count as a “special interest”!

And that’s when I realized…it doesn’t matter if someone specific or some big company or conglomerate is going to make tons of money because of a particular proposition, because those people and companies are politically connected, and they ALWAYS manage to make money anyway somehow. What really matters is whether the proposition actually does something worthwhile (in the case of 56, help motivate people to stop smoking).

Most of the people against Prop 64 really do mean well, and they have some good points. I know this because I was against it for awhile myself. I get it: Prop 64 is not perfect by a long shot. It might be overridden by the legislature, it only allows you to possess one ounce, and it throws everyone between the ages of 18 and 21 under the bus.

But what Prop 64 does do is make marijuana legal for everyone over the age of 21 in California. By making it legal, it does away with the “but it’s against the law” and “medical marijuana is a joke because anyone can get a card” arguments. Making it legal means no more bogus searches because a cop “smelled marijuana”. Prop 64 allows anyone over the age of 21 to grow up to 6 plants inside their house, and local laws can’t stop that. And it will be one of the final hurdles for legalization, because once other states (and the Federal government, I might add) see the kind of job creation and tax money California is going to generate, the rest will fall like dominoes. California and our laws have proved this time and again. And President Obama just agreed with me in a recent interview!

Plus…weed will be legal everywhere on the West Coast. They can’t ignore that.

Copyright 2016 BeyondChronic.com
Vote yes on California Prop 64 in 2016!

A lot of Prop 64 opponents like to say that it’s “unnecessary”. Nobody is actually put in jail any more in California for simple marijuana possession, for instance, and pot is “basically legal, because anyone can easily get a medical marijuana recommendation”. Unfortunately this is very short-sighted. Even if this “medical loophole” was set in stone, its existence is one of the very reasons the Federal government cited when raiding so many dispensaries a few years ago: “marijuana in California is out of control and not regulated”. And although nobody is actually imprisoned for possession of small amounts, police can be very creative by charging you with paraphernalia or other crimes, and being arrested and fined is happening to thousands of people across the state right now and is no fun in any case. But once marijuana is no longer illegal, then there’s no such thing as a pipe being “illegal drug paraphernalia”, is there?

The fact of the matter is that medical marijuana in California has already been radically changed…you just aren’t thinking fourth-dimensionally. While MMJ is still going on its merry way at this moment, it will all come crashing down on January 1, 2018 when the provisions of MMRSA kick in. This was a law that was rammed through the state legislature last year and signed by the governor over the period of a single weekend, ironically reminiscent of the shenanigans surrounding the original 1937 Marihuana Tax Act. MMRSA undid years of trust and seemingly respectful discussions between the medical marijuana community and legislators. MMRSA destroys the “pot doctor” industry, and mandates that all medical recommendations come from a patient’s primary care physician. Do you think your family physician is going to write you a medical recommendation?

So the simple fact is that, unless we legalize recreational marijuana by passing Prop 64, the only way to get legal cannabis in California will be as a seriously ill patient whose doctor is willing to write a recommendation. Considering the amount of scrutiny doctors will be under as part of MMRSA, we’ll be lucky if we have it as good as MMJ patients in New Jersey, and you can ask anyone in New Jersey how well that’s working for them.

Fool Me Once…

I love the people who grow medical marijuana and run dispensaries, but they have an agenda against Prop 64, and it’s purely financial. They convinced me back in 2010 not to vote for Prop 19, with exactly the same “logic”. If it wasn’t for them, we could have had a legal cannabis industry in California for six years already…before Colorado, Washington, and everyone else…and gotten it all straightened out by now!

And speaking of throwing people under the bus, that’s exactly what the opponents of 64 plan to do to you. They haven’t told you what happens on 1/1/2018, and how this will be most people’s last chance to legalize before their access to medical marijuana goes away. So they are throwing YOU under the bus, all because they want to keep making their high profits, protected by an artificial monopoly.

You know who else works that way? Monsanto.

Do you really want to be one of the few people who vote against legal marijuana, just because the law might not be “perfect”? We can always improve things later, especially using the great momentum of the new economic revolution that all that tax money and those new jobs will bring.

Think about it!

http://BeyondChronic.com

Old Hippie is a father of two boys and thankfully living in California where all this kind of thing is legal. He started smoking marijuana in 1967 in high school, experimented with mind-expanding drugs of all kinds, and then straightened out 15 or so years later to become an airplane pilot. After being diagnosed with depression in 2000, he lost his job and most of the following decade to prescription medications (such as antidepressants) which sapped his energy and will. Finally, a chance conversation with a friend led to a doctor’s recommendation for medical marijuana (MMJ). This changed his entire life, health, and outlook for the better. BeyondChronic.com is his continuing story. It’s also his way to provide experienced advice on using medical marijuana effectively and responsibly, as well as advocacy, activism, and support for others. Old Hippie teaches about safe use of cannabis edibles, Canna Caps, vaporizers, dosing, and even microdosing.

4 comments

So true, we have the same situation going on in Maine right now. Lots of short sighted caregivers fighting against legalization in order to protect their livelihoods. It’s just greed on a smaller scale, no different than the other side! They’ve joined forces with the enemy, the real prohibitionists. Very selfish! I’m a legal patient who grows my own, but I want to see advancements in the industry and the only way that will happen is complete legalization. I also want others who can’t get access now to be able to. There are many sick people who still don’t qualify, and many don’t know cannabis can help them. That will change rapidly after legalization.
And let’s not forget about all the lives being ruined just for a possession charge. It’s way past time for that to end. Legalization is the only way.
End the greed and selfishness!

Steep Hills labs recently found that 84% of dispensary samples tested during a 30 day period had pesticides. Dispensaries are not required to have their wares tested. Any other medicine or product you buy has stated and verified contents–marijuana, including medical marijuana, does not.
The stated cannabinoid concentrations of products sold in dispensaries, and even whether the contents are THC or CBD, are also highly suspect. An elderly friend recently used some of a 300mg CBD “medicine” and got very stoned. Obviously it contained THC, not CBD, since CBD does not get you stoned.
We need to regulate this market and have medicines contain what they state in cannabinoid contents and not be contaminated with pesticides or any other potentially unhealthy contaminant.
A no vote on 64 is a vote to keep it illegal until the state legislature makes their own version of legalization. Do you want them to decide the rules of legalization? I certainly don’t.
Prop 64 also allows non-violent drug prisoners and those with records to petition the courts for immediate release and also for expunging their arrest records. That means thousands of Californian Drug War victims could resume normal lives without a criminal record, effectively giving them a chance to enter the work force and recover their lives.A no vote is a vote to keep them in prison and criminalized.
Prop 64 isn’t perfect, but it is the best we will ever have a chance of getting–there will never be another Legalization proposition in California–it is too expensive to do in California and organizations like NORML and MPP will direct their resources mainly to smaller states where their energies and funding can be more effective in the big picture of the entire country.
I’m voting Yes on 64, and I have been a grower since 1968 and a writer on marijuana since 1971, having been the author and publisher of the Marijuana Grower’s Guides and the editor and publisher of Rob Clarke’s HASHISH!

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