Now that marijuana legalization initiatives have been approved in Colorado and Washington State, the big question for the marijuana reform movement is what should be the next move. Mainly, should there be a push to put similar legalization initiatives on the ballot in targeted states in 2014 or is it better to wait until the 2016 election?

It is an important strategic decision. Each initiative campaign requires a significant time and financial commitment. The close failure of an initiative can also run the risk of causing issue fatigue among voter,s forcing the community to wait several cycles before trying again. Without directly choosing a side, I want to present what seem to be the best arguments for each.

2014 – Moving as quickly as possible

• The moral imperative – If you believe marijuana prohibition is bad policy that is needlessly hurting people then it can be argued that you have a duty to try to end it as soon as possible. You should not let bad policies persist a moment longer than absolutely necessary. There are a few states that might be able to narrowly approve a legalization measure in 2014.
• Strike while the iron is hot – Support for legalization has grown steadily for the past two decades and it’s assumed support will continue to grow in the near future, but that might not be the case. It is possible that some new development in 2015, like say a strong federal response against Colorado and Washington State, could temporarily reverse this trend. If an initiative looks like it stands a decent chance of winning in 2014 it might make sense to seize the moment on the off chance that the support could drop before 2016.
• Maintaining the momentum – People are currently excited about the recent victories but four years is a long time. If an initiative won in 2014 it could help keep the issue prominent.

2016 – Waiting for the best chance of success

• A more favorable electorate – 2016 will be a presidential year election. Traditionally, presidential elections see much higher turnouts from young voters who tend be the strongest supporters of legalization. Post-election polling indicates that if California’s 2010 Proposition 19 had been on the ballot during a Presidential election it would have done roughly two percentage points better. That could easily make the difference between a narrow win and a narrow loss.
• Support will likely keep growing – Polling shows support for legalization has been growing steadily for decades and it will likely continue to grow. Waiting just two extra years could make winning an initiative campaign noticeably easier.
• More time to build support – Part of why Amendment 64 did so well in Colorado is that activists in the state had spend years laying the groundwork. The extra time could be used to better prepare for the campaign.
• A premature loss could destroy the national narrative – The recent victories have created the national perception that legalization has momentum, but if the next set of initiative campaigns happened prematurely and failed, that could ruin this narrative. This narrative perception is very important because less than half the states allow initiatives and eventually the issue will need to be dealt with at the federal level. For legalization to spread to non-initiative states legislators need to feel there is a broad wave of support for change.
• Potential for a friendly presidential nominee – With support for legalization growing there is a good chance at least some of the presidential hopefuls in 2o16 might try to curry favor with young people on the issue. People might be more inclined to vote for a legalization initiative if at least one of the presidential candidates promised not to use the federal law enforcement to interfere.

A the moment there seems to be some coalescing around the strategy of waiting until 2016. At the recent NORML conference in California there was mostly agreement among activists that 2016 was the best time for a legalization initiative. In addition, MPP is currently planning to focus most of its state-wide initiative efforts on getting ready for 2016. It is still roughly a year before any decision will need to be made so of course everything is subject to change based on new developments.

Photo by marijuana2007b under Creative Commons license.

There is good reason to be optimistic that 2012 will be a historic year for marijuana reform. In the final week before the election, marijuana legalization initiatives on the ballot this year are doing much better in the polls compared to a similar initiative on the California ballot in 2010 election.

Both Washington State and Colorado have marijuana legalization initiatives on the ballot and every recent poll of the two states found the respective initiatives with at least the same lead. By comparison, in the last week of the 2010 cycle the polling of Proposition 19, which would have legalized marijuana in California, had turned negative. The final polls of Proposition 19 all had the measure narrowly losing. After all the votes were counted Prop 19 ended up being defeated 46.5 percent yes to 53.5 percent no.

Since some of the same pollsters who surveyed Prop 19 in 2010 have also been polling the marijuana legalization initiatives this cycle it is possible to do a direct comparison. In their final polls of California in 2010 both SurveyUSA and Public Policy Polling accurately predicted how much support Prop 19 would end up getting. Both final polls had it 44 percent yes and it ended up getting 46.5 percent. A slight increase is to expected as the undecideds are finally forced to make a choice. This year the pollsters have the initiatives in Washington State and Colorado at over 50 percent support.

If these two pollsters prove to be as accurate with their marijuana legalization ballot measures polls this election as they were last cycle, the initiatives in Colorado and Washington State will likely be approved.

Photo by WCHI News used under Creative Commons license.

Colorado marijuana initiative could hinge on young voter turnout

The voters in Colorado are currently leaning towards legalizing marijuana this year. Amendment 64, which would legalize cannabis for adults 21 and over in Colorado, is currently on the November ballot and has a ten point lead in the last polling.

A new poll for the University of Denver found that 50 percent of likely voters plan to cast their ballots for the initiative, while 40 percent plan to vote against it. The remaining 10 percent are currently undecided.

Interestingly, the poll also asked voters how in general they think marijuana should be treated under the law. It found 47 percent think marijuana should be legal and regulated like alcohol, another 28 percent believe it should only be legal for medicinal purpose and just 21 percent felt it should be completely illegal.

This is good and bad news for the campaign. As a political operation it has done a very good job of getting basically every voter who agrees the idea of legalization to also support the initiative. Often some voters will support a general concept but vote against an initiative dealing with it because they oppose some of the initiative’s specific provisions. Post-election analysis shows that issue may have hurt Proposition 19 in California.

The bad news is that there doesn’t appear to be much low hanging fruit left, such as supporters of legalization who have not heard about Amendment 64. It will probably be difficult for the campaign to significantly expand its level of support in the next few week and it is likely that undecideds will tend to break against it.

Oakland’s Oaksterdam University was taken over by federal officials Monday morning.

Officers wearing U.S. Marshals, IRS and DEA jackets swarmed the Oakland medical marijuana facility on Broadway before 8 a.m. Investigators put yellow crime tape around the entire building.

Just after 9 a.m. agents brought out trash bags of unknown materials to a waiting van.

The presence of the IRS in addition to the DEA at this raid should be concerning to people involved in medical marijuana. The IRS recently contended that federal law prevents medical marijuana businesses from qualifying for standard business tax deductions that all other companies take, such as rent and payroll.

Based on this ruling last year the IRS went after Harborside Health Center, another of California’s most prominent medical marijuana businesses, claiming it owed $2.5 million in back taxes. If the IRS starts aggressively enforcing this position, it could become financially impossible for medical marijuana businesses to operate; it means those currently in business could owe huge amounts in back taxes.

This raid likely represents yet the latest escalation in the Obama administration’s multi-agency war on medical marijuana. Oaksterdam University was founded by Richard Lee, the main sponsor of the failed 2010 marijuana legalization ballot measure, Proposition 19. Richard Lee and Steve DeAngelo, the chief executive of Harborside, are probably two of the most high profile individuals in California’s medical marijuana community.

Update II.  The LA Times also reports that authorities searched the home of Richard Lee in conjunction with this action.

Update I: The video below was taken shortly after the raids.

Marijuana legalization initiatives are already approved to appear on the ballot in Colorado (Amendment 64) and Washington State (Initiative 502).  These two initiatives have five important advantages this year compared to Prop 19.

1) Time – While two years is a very short period of time separating the ballot measures, the opinions of regular Americans on marijuana legalization are changing rapidly. In October 2009 Gallup found 44% of Americans thought marijuana should be legal, compared to 54% illegal. In 2010 that gap had closed to 46% legal – 50% illegal. By October 2011 Gallup found 50% thought it should be legal, compared to 46% illegal. That was basically an 8 point national swing for legalization in just the first year following Prop 19′s failure.

Pew polling also found a recent increase in support for legalization in one year. In March 2010 pew found 41% thought marijuana should be legal compared to 52% illegal. Exactly one year later Pew found support jumped to 45% legal – 50% illegal.

There has already been a significant growth in popular support for marijuana legalization since just 2010 when Prop 19 failed. If the trend continues, support should likely grow another few point between now and November, when voters in Colorado and Washington State go to the polls.

2) Turnout, Age – Another piece of good news for marijuana legalization is that 2012 is a presidential election year; 2010 was only a congressional election year. Presidential elections almost always experience much higher overall voter turnout, especially among younger voters. In 2008 the last presidential election, people under the age of 30 cast 17.1% of all the votes. In 2010 people under 30 made up only 11.3% of the vote.

This is very important for marijuana legalization, because there is a huge age divide on the issue. Young voters overwhelming support it, while older voters oppose it. According to Gallup 62% of those adults under 30 support legalization while only 31% of those over 65 do. If young voters in 2010 had comprised the same percentage of the electorate as they had in the 2008 presidential election, Prop 19 would have done significantly better, likely failing by only 49% yes to 51% no.

3) Turnout, Partisan – In addition 2010 was a highly unusually wave election for Republicans. There was a relatively high turnout among Republican leaning voters and an unusually low turnout among Democratic leaning voters. This likely hurt Prop 19, since Republicans voters tend to be less supportive of legalization. Gallup found 57% of Democrats think marijuana should be legal while only 35% of Republicans feel that way. Early indications are that in 2012 we will see nothing like the historic Republican wave that happened in 2010, and partisan turnout should be more even. A more traditional partisan balance in turnout would improve a marijuana legalization ballot measure performance this year compared to 2010.

4) Clear Regulatory Structures – While there are important technical differences between the initiatives on the ballot in Washington State and Colorado, they both clearly assign a specific state agency to regulate, control and tax marijuana. On the other hand Prop 19 didn’t directly lay out how state agencies would regulate and tax marijuana. This lack of explicit instruction about a state regulation scheme was widely attacked by opponents to make the claim that Prop 19 was “poorly drafted.”

Indications are that this particular attack did cost Prop 19 some support and contributed to its narrow loss. PPIC polling found that 7% of voters said the main reason they voted no on Prop 19 was because it was “poorly written.” Similarly Greenberg Quinlan Rosner polling found that almost a third of those who voted against Prop 19 in general thought marijuana should be legal or decriminalized but had specific problems with Prop 19. Both I-502 and Amendment 64 were drafted in part to address these concerns. One hopes the design of these two measures will help them win over those on the fence.

5) Strength in Numbers – While hard to quantify, I think the fact the legalization will be on the ballot in at least two states this November will have a psychological impact on voters. A lot of the rhetoric around Prop 19 was about California going it alone. Often it was phrased as ‘would California lead the way’, ‘would California break with the rest of the country,’ or ‘would California live up to its hippie counter cultural image.’ I think concerns about being first and alone on this issue made some voters in California uncomfortable.

I feel that with legalization being simultaneously decided on in Washington and Colorado, the rhetoric this time around will be more about whether the country is moving to embrace marijuana legalization and less about whether a single state is going it alone. I suspect being part of a multi-state debate will make some undecided voters more comfortable than they would be if they were asked to vote to make their state the ‘first’ to take the plunge.

The demographic trends on the issue are so clearly moving in one direction that it is no longer a question of whether states will begin ending their prohibition against marijuana, but simply a matter of when. For these reasons and many others, 2012 just might be the beginning of the end for the war on marijuana in the United States.

Do you think marijuana usage should be legal or illegal?
Legal  ……………………………………………………… 48%
Illegal …………………………………………………….. 42%
Not sure ………………………………………………….. 10%

Back in the 2010 election the voters of California rejected Proposition 19, which would have legalized marijuana in the state, by a margin of 53.5% no to 46.5% yes.

Prop 19 did suffer from two important issues that brought its vote total down slightly lower than it could have been. The first issue was that a small percentage of people that were inclined to support the concept of marijuana legalization voted against the measure because they had problem with some of specific provisions in the measure. The bigger problem for Prop 19 was that turnout demographics in the 2010 mid-term election were extremely unfavorable to marijuana. The 2010 election saw unusually high relative turnout from conservatives and older voters, groups that tend to oppose legalization. Combined, those two factors likely cost the measure a few percentages points.

Based on all the polling of the question in California over the past two years, it would appear that the number of California voters who affirmatively support marijuana legalization has remained relatively steady. The percentage of voters in California who say marijuana should be legal continues to hoover around or just below 50 percent.

Given that the national trend has been toward growing support for marijuana legalization, it is conceivable that in one of the next several elections the the voters of California could vote on and approve a legalization ballot measure.

Californians are still divided on legalizing marijuana, with 46 percent saying it should be made legal while  51 percent disagree. Findings were similar in September 2010 (47% legal, 49% illegal) and in May 2010 (48% legal, 49% illegal). Likely voters hold similar views. In 2010, voters rejected Proposition 19 (53.5% no), which would have legalized marijuana in the state. Most Democrats (53%) support legalizing marijuana use, while most Republicans (59%) oppose it. Independents are much more likely to support making marijuana use legal (56%) than keeping it illegal (40%). Over half of liberals (59%) and moderates (52%) favor legalization, while 68 percent of conservatives oppose legalization of marijuana.

The San Francisco Bay Area is the only region where residents are more likely to say marijuana should be made legal (55%) than illegal (40%). In other regions, residents of the Central Valley (60%), Los Angeles (57%), and the Other Southern California region (53%) prefer to keep marijuana illegal. Latinos (68%) are most likely to oppose legalization, compared to 53 percent of Asians and 41 percent of whites. A majority (55%) of whites favor legalization. Just over half of men (53% legal, 44% illegal) think marijuana should be legal; a majority of women disagree (39% legal, 58% illegal).

The loss last year of Proposition 19, a marijuana legalization ballot initiative, hasn’t caused a significant decrease, or increase, in the support for marijuana legalization in the state. This is mildly positive news for the reform movement going forward. There is the worry, with any issue put on the ballot, that if it loses, more people will go along with popular opinion.

This poll would indicate that marijuana policy reform advocates don’t need to be too concerned about a popular opinion backlash if their initiative narrowly fails.

Do you think marijuana usage should be legal  or illegal?
Legal ………… 51%
Illegal………… 38%
Not sure ……. 11%

Not surprisingly the break down of support for legalizing the use of marijuana in Colorado is nearly identical to the patterns we have seen nationally. Support for legalizing the usage of marijuana is strongest among very liberal voters (82%), Democrats (65%) and voters under 30 (71%). While the least amount of support comes from very conservative voters (28%), Republicans (31%) and senior citizens (36%).

One very interesting piece of information from the cross tabs is that individuals who voted for Barack Obama in the 2008 election overwhelmingly think marijuana should be legal by a margin of 68 percent legal – 21 percent illegal. In Colorado, at least, President Obama’s stance on both recreational and medicinal marijuana use is radically out of line with his base.

Although majority support for marijuana legalization is a good sign for this Colorado campaign, it should be noted that in 2010 the California marijuana legalization measure, Proposition 19, was ahead in early polling but ended up losing narrowly on election day. This Colorado effort  should  be in slightly better shape than Prop 19 was because they are trying to put the issue on the ballot in a Presidential Election year. Presidential elections tend to see much higher turn out among young voters who strongly support legalization.

According to the poll, Republicans were a main cause of Prop 19 failure. Only 27% of the Republicans who voted this year cast their ballot for Prop 19, while 73% voted against the measure. Democrats and independents supported the measure at near identical rates, 56% of Democrats and 55% of independents voted yes. This shows that at least some of Prop 19′s problems came down to bad timing. This 2010 midterm election had unusually high turnout among Republicans.

Most interesting, this poll provides an answer to why many voted against Prop 19:

The top reason given for voting yes on the measure, in an open-ended question, is that it would have allowed for the taxation of marijuana (29%). Yes-voters also say that marijuana use is a personal issue or not a big deal (12%), that it would have freed up the police/courts to do other things (11%), or that it would lead to less crime and drug violence (10%). Among no-voters, the top reasons given for opposition are that drugs should be illegal (33%), and that legalization is not good for the state (12%). Fewer cite child safety (8%), the potential conflict with federal law (7%), or that the initiative was poorly written (7%).

Having 7% vote no because they felt the initiative was poorly written was clearly very damaging to the campaign given that those voter were potentially persuadable and the fact that the measure in the end only lost by seven points.

The poll found that specific problems with the ballot measure itself, as opposed to the general idea marijuana legalization, likely cost Prop 19 important votes. While the measure failed 46.5% to 53.5%, the poll found the voters were evenly split 49%-49% on whether, in general, they think marijuana should be legal.

The data indicates the ultimate loss of Prop 19 was likely due to  three factors: bad timing, failure of campaign messaging, and measure design issues.

With a few changes, Proposition 19 could likely have been drafted in a better manner from a purely politically perspective. I also feel the campaign didn’t do a sufficient job of pushing back against some of the opposition’s rather ridiculous attacks about the initiative’s design. While these issues likely cost the measure several points, the importance of the national trend of the election shouldn’t be ignored. It was just bad luck to have a measure oppose by 74% of Republicans on the ballot in an election with unusually high Republican turnout.

Overall, the poll is decent news for the marijuana reform movement going forward. With a ballot initiative that has a better design from a political perspective, a more nimble campaign prepared to respond quickkly to attacks on technical issues, and an election with a friendly turnout demographic; it is easy to picture how a marijuana legalization initiative in California could pass with a modest majority.

CONAN: Now, I don’t want to make any assumptions about you. I know you, I don’t say I know you better than a lot of people in the business, but I’m guessing that you were disappointed that Proposition 19 failed.

ROGEN: Yeah, I was – the marijuana proposition. But the good news is, literally anyone on Earth can get a medical marijuana card.

CONAN: This state – that’s the thing that I couldn’t understand. This state, it was such a big question: will they legalize marijuana or not? And it looks like it’s a fairly easy thing to do, to get a medical marijuana card.

ROGEN: Yes, I have a medical marijuana prescription personally. I went in, they said, “what do you need it for?” I said, “I have a very specific ailment – it’s called, I ain’t got no weed on me right now.”

CONAN: “I ain’t go no weed on me.”

ROGEN: That’s how I worded it. And the lady said, “We actually have just the thing for that.”

This exchange really points to some, though of course not nearly all, of why Prop 19 failed. There are legions of California voters who already have easy access to marijuana that, for all intents and purposes, is “legal” in the minds of those consumers.

Of course, there are thousands of people in California and elsewhere that require medical marijuana just to get through their days. It’s why we worked hard in Oregon, South Dakota, and Arizona this year to help patients in those states get safe access to medical marijuana.

But it’s no secret that people like Seth Rogen and Snoop Dogg have medical marijuana cards, and can go to a store to buy marijuana, because they have the “very specific ailment – called, ‘I ain’t got no weed on me right now.’”

There’s much to be discussed about why Prop 19 did not succeed, and many of the reasons go well beyond the current culture of marijuana in California. Just Say Now just conducted a survey of our supporters about the campaign, and will soon prepare a report of our findings. Yet this video struck me as representative of some problem that exists to motivate the general public that already embraces, if not uses, marijuana, to support a legalization initiative when for all intents and purposes, marijuana is basically legal in the state.

UPDATE: On the other side of the medical marijuana issue, the Federal Government now allows the sale of “legal marijuana!” But only if you’re a pharmaceutical company.