What are your thoughts on CA's proposition 19 (decriminalization of weed)? Im just interested in what other people are thinking about on this subject. Personally, I think it should be legalized and it will probably win. If I were a few months older I would vote, but alas, I can not.
Why legalise drugs. I am completely against them. I'd like to learn more about this proposition 19, what are the advantages of legalising weed in CA. Why has this been brought forward?
My main reason for liking this is because I think that way too many people go to jail for petty weed crimes, and it cost the state a ton of money to process them and keep them in jail. They could be spending the time and resources on chasing after real criminals. Now I realize that weed can also be linked to bigger drug dealers and more serious criminal activity, but if you're just an average pothead and happen to get caught with a bag of pot it seems so unnecessary to waste time shuffling through the court system and taking up space in jail. I live in the Capital of CA and just in the last year about 10 different pot clubs (sorry, Wellness Centers ) have sprung up just within walking distance of my house. It's ridiculously easy to get a club card and purchase it legally from a bunch of different places already. If we can avoid jailing the people who are just too lazy to go about the legit process of buying weed then I think that's a good thing.
Okay a few things you should know. Pot does not equate to drugs. We're only talking about cannabis here, a drug that has been proven to be relatively safe to use, more so than alcohol. Second, legalising, and decriminalising, are slightly different ideas. Legalising makes it completely legal, whereas decriminalising reduces and reclassifies penalties for pot related crime. The advantages of decriminalising pot are, as Boardumb said, that is will stop prosecution for petty possession crimes, reducing the strain on the state, and allowing police to focus their resources on more important bad guys. Depending on the model for decriminalisation, it's likely that the state will be able to slap a hefty tax on the sale of weed, which would bring in a great deal of additional revenue. Those are just off the top of my head.
Excluding weed from the three strike system would be a brilliant place to start. There are plenty of reports around of murderers and rapists getting shorter sentences because the prisons are too crowded with harmless teenage potheads.
Exactly why I am for this. I don't smoke or anything and havn't for a looooonnnnnggggg time, but it's petty to think that pot heads go to the US prison system for minor shit, when like you said, overcrowding is becoming increasingly hard to deal with. People who smoke are going to smoke anyways regardless of its legality. So why not decriminalize it to make things easier. They should just legalize it, put a big tax on it like they do cigarrettes and boom, we have the money for a real healthcare reform.
Massachusetts already decriminalized possessing less than an ounce. It's now just a civil fine or something. In November they have randomly chosen districts around the state to see if making it completely legal would pass in a non-binding question on a supplemental ballot. They actually are debating the tax that Booch just mentioned as a revenue boost to the state as one of the "pros" to making it legal.
Alcohol is a legalized narcotic, 100 times more destructive then weed. Alcohol tears apart families and destroys lives. Yet it has been legalized in the name of corporate/capitalistic greed. While weed can be used Medicinally, there is absolutely no redeeming social value whatsoever to alcohol. Weed is essentially harmless, or as harmless as cigarettes anyway. Alcohol is extremely addictive. Weed is not addictive. You cannot be addicted to weed. It's not possible. Anyone who thinks or says otherwise is misinformed. This prop does not have a chance in hell of passing. I live in California and it insults my intelligence to see that this prop even exists. This prop has a 99.999999999 percent chance of failure. Nobody is going to pass this. People aren't going to vote yes on this. This prop is a complete waste of everyone's time.
I could write a long winded rant here but instead I'll just say: Legalize it, tax it. The only people who seem to be vehemently against this are the same kind of people who can't help but butt in to what everyone else is doing. Live and let live, whether that means toking up once in a while, marrying someone of the same sex, and everything else that's a hot button political issue lately that barely matters at the end of the day. The fact that this likely won't pass really makes me want to move to a country that isn't run by this incredibly hypocritical faux-puritanical religious mumbo jumbo.
You're probably right. This proposition doesn't sound stupid enough to be passed by California voters.
Anyone else here first see the thread title and thought "California Prostitution 19"? Or is it just me...?
I've had it worser than you. I had to google "Proposition"... "I am from Germany" - I guess thats a lame excuse. Back to topic: yeah, legalize and tax it. Alcohol is far more worse and I have never seen anyone who smoked himself to death or thought he could fly like a bird. If anyone wants or needs it, fine, let them. People in the Netherlands can smoke pot since dozens of years in their coffee shops.
