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Prop 19, California’s ballot initiative to legalize marijuana, is projected to be defeated at the polls today. The results currently show Prop 19 down 56-43 with 20% reporting, but will get much closer as the rest of the state reports. It’s clear though that 2010 is not the year California will legalize marijuana. The Yes on 19 campaign released a statement conceding the election.
There’s much to be discussed in the coming days about why Prop 19 lost, what it means, and what states are the best bets to try legalization next time around. The Yes on 19 campaign really began to build a full campaign apparatus in the last month and a half, and as such, the operation wasn’t able to overcome an already difficult electorate. We’ll need to look at turnout numbers and see to what extent, if any, young voters helped drive yes votes for 19.
Outside of California, it’s not any better for marijuana measures. Oregon and South Dakota defeated their respective medical marijuana measures soundly; Arizona’s Prop 203 to legalize medical marijuana is in a nail biter, with 48.67% of the vote and 81% reporting. More results at JustSayNow.com.
Just Say Now was able to drive more than 30,000 calls to California voters as of yesterday, including 14,000 on Sunday alone. We had more people calling all day yesterday and today, and we’ll know soon our impact from those. We made thousands more calls for medical marijuana measures in Arizona, Oregon, and South Dakota. We built websites for both Oregon and South Dakota to help inform voters. We put together an incredible transpartisan coalition of liberals and libertarians, professors and police chiefs that shook up the debate on Prop 19. We’ve been a part of an incredible effort that could not have happened without our Just Say Now supporters.
And the entire conversation has changed. Sure, you still get cheesy headlines and pot stereotypes. But marijuana legalization is being seriously debated and discussed in virtually every major media outlet and venue. And nearly half of Americans now say they support legalizing marijuana. Marijuana legalization is on the move.
For now, it’s clear that this is just the start of a robust, grassroots movement to legalize marijuana that will try again in 2012; not just in California, but in other states that are ready to legalize. We’ll need a core group of activists and supporters to help put measures on the ballot, and then make sure they pass.
Prop 19 may have lost tonight, but our movement to legalize marijuana moves on.
17 Comments
We need to figure out how to keep children out of the argument. Just like with Prop 8, parents worried about their kids likely sunk this. I could be wrong, but then my midsummer prediction would be as well.
Fine work all around, team. This just wasn’t the year, considering who was motivated to get to the polls. I wonder if Democratic party support would have helped in CA, when their neutrality once looked like a fools errand.
We fight on!
If the new attorney general is L.A. District Attorney Steve Cooley, he might “declare dispensaries illegal“, according to a reader over at The Daily Dish.
It is really disheartening to see things going this way. The drug war destroys lives by making criminals out of people who have done nothing to harm anyone else; erodes civil liberties by giving police enormous powers to search and seize people’s property; and drains the public treasury to finance and empower the most authoritarian aspects of our society.
You might see this come up again, but there has to be a more clearer plan on how it will be controlled. And the message needs to be clear and have all people from ALL sides of the equation.
Oh, crap. Not him. Nooooooo!
On the positive side, maybe a few years of his cruddy attitude will change hearts and minds to turn out to vote in favor of legalization. Nothing like hearing from the relatives needing bail money because grandma just got busted in a dispensary raid.
On to 2012!
As I kneel before my AquaBuddha – this sucks.
I especially got warm responses from the Latino community when I called encouraging their participation in the vote. With all of our friends across all our communities and our head start, we will rock the vote in 2012!
You fought the good fight … the righteous fight … and you should be proud at the headway you made. You can’t win them all, but you can keep fighting until you win.
Z
I seem to recall there was some initial discussion of whether to bring this question up during anon-presidential-election year, primarily because of voter turn out.
Now, however, after the past two years of Obama’s completely turning off younger voters, plus the next two, I don’t think 2012 will be any better. [Then, of course, there's the little matter of his being against Prop. 19. Way to attract the kids, oh Brilliant Leader.]
I intend to keep fighting for the end of Marijuana Prohibition and I look forward to putting it on the ballot here in CO in 2012. I think we can end the prohibition here in our state, especially during a presidential election. Don’t despair, don’t give up, don’t think all is lost. This is just the early stages of what history will talk about as the movement that freed Americans from 75 years of lies and manipulation and finally ended the prohibition on marijuana.
Prop 19 was an interesting experiment. Unfortunately it proved that American voters are too fucking stupid to end the prohibition of marijuana. The people of California, by secret ballot, have endorsed the police state and expressed their disdain for civil liberties.
Good job on prop 19 campaign…
However people like Sharon Osborne were able to spew crap around including saying school bus drivers would be allowed to smoke pot
and ABC news did a story on impaired driving..as if it isn’t already against the law to drive while under the influence.
Ignorance apparently is bliss and people who voted against 19 are ignorant gits
The pace of social change is excruciatingly slow.
It took until 1920 before women could vote.
Such is the power of Prejudice.
I worked on Prop 19 in 1972, and Oregon Measure 5.
Legalization is only 4 percentage points away.
This is real progress.
The issue does need real professional political management. The above post said there was only about a month and a half of a real campaign. That’s not quite enough. Look what the Tea Party managed to do with their wacky candidates and big money campaigns.
Meantime, the issue has been pushed closer to the win than ever before, and learning from this campaign will help next time around.
Keep The Faith.
This initiative makes too much sense to pause the efforts that culminated in Prop 19. A big thanks to all at the Just Say Now initiative. Continue the fight.
I want to thank and give credit to Just Say Now, SSDP, NORML, and all the other people and organizations that worked their asses off to try and pass Prop 19 and the other marijuana legislation around the USA. You are all heroes in my book and I’m extremely grateful for the work you’ve done. Please don’t give up – we’re so close and we need you. Marijuana Prohibition will end and we will be the ones that make it happen.
This. ++
I know a few people who regularly consume marijuana who live in California, and they all voted against this proposition, because they were afraid of the Wal-Mart-ification of marijuana production and use. No amount of my pointing out the huge craft brewing industry that exists in the wake of an Anheuser-Busch distribution monopoly could dissuade them from the complete idiocy of their position.
People cannot, I repeat cannot, be persuaded, enlightened, or engaged in any meaningful way through the use of logic, evidence, or reason.
Sad as it makes me to concede this, the only way we’re going to get anything interesting done is by having better propaganda. Video after video of jack-booted militarized police terrorizing and rounding people up. Teachers standing in unemployment lines while cops and their shiny new SWAT vehicles parade slowly by them. Middle-class guy getting busted, sent to jail, and then forcibly turned into somebody’s bitch.
Better propaganda.
I still stand firmly behind this movement generally. I don’t think any change of any good will come through elections, and it will be only through popular initiatives that we get the people’s hands back on their government. The problem of course, is what they do with it once they’ve got it, but it’s still a net positive over having a bunch of rich narcissistic assholes lording over us.
There was some Good News last night for some in Santa Barbara Ca. and surrounding areas. The City Counsel had been under some fire by parts of the city to close the 3 legal dispensaries left after they purged all the others. the City Counsel was split on how to act so they took what they thought would be the easy way out and let the voters take the heat for closing and banning any dispensaries by putting in on the ballot. Known as prop.T , it was roundly defeated 60% to 40%.
This goes to show that the Medical Model is still viable, that Santa Barbarains are still liberal leaning, and promises we will at least have a few dispensaries locally so we are not forced to drive 100s of miles in either direction.
I have to tell those who ran the Prop.19 campainge that they need to spend tons more money on advertizing than was spent this time. I live in SB County and never saw any TV ads, very, very few print ads, and none on the radio stations I listen to. With no offence meant to the “Just Say Now” folks, we just did not really attack this issue with the educating type of ads that are needed to change the uninformed voters minds. Hopefully this lesson has been taken to heart and that we will hit the road harder, faster and with a way more indepth campainge.
We need to spend millions and millions more if we want to do away with prohibition once and for all.
Thanks for the response. I have always resisted attempts to blame voters for the crimes of Empire. That’s because voters have so little influence on nominations and because candidates and media lie to them. But this was a very straight forward proposition that everybody could understand.
I’m a bit surprised by my own reaction to this. It’s certainly not my first rodeo. But I am very inclined to quit the field. These people are not worth the effort.