Sup­port for mar­i­juana legal­iza­tion: atti­tudes chang­ing over time (Gallup 1970–2011, top) and region­ally (Zogby 2009, bottom).

Wel­come to Bal­lot Watch. Today is the sec­ond in the series of arti­cles on the upcom­ing bal­lot ini­tia­tives and some key local elec­tions. Some of these will cover top­ics in com­mon with mul­ti­ple states, while oth­ers will look at a state level.

Pres­i­dent Obama has dis­ap­pointed many left-​​wing and Lib­er­tar­ian sup­port­ers by reneg­ing on his pub­lic promises regard­ing enforce­ment of mar­i­juana laws. Many of the laws on the list which fol­lows will cre­ate a legal quandary: while many social con­ser­v­a­tives sup­port the 10th Amend­ment when it comes to their pet issues, they’re not nearly as keen on the same pro­vi­sion in the Bill of Rights when it comes to same-​​sex mar­riage (arti­cle Thurs­day) or med­ical mar­i­juana use.

In this, our sec­ond install­ment in the Bal­lot Watch series (Unions First!), I’ll exam­ine mar­i­juana legal­iza­tion or decrim­i­nal­iza­tion ini­tia­tives, state by state.

 

There’s a cloud of WHAT around Mt. Rainier? National Park Ser­vice Photo: Steve Redman

Washington’s I-​​502: See Mt. Rainier, Buy a Kilo

Washington’s Ini­tia­tive 502 would essen­tially place mar­i­juana on an equal foot­ing with grain alco­hol as a decrim­i­nal­ized drug avail­able to all adults. [Com­plete text.]

From the ballot:

This mea­sure would license and reg­u­late mar­i­juana pro­duc­tion, dis­tri­b­u­tion, and pos­ses­sion for per­sons over twenty-​​one; remove state-​​law crim­i­nal and civil penal­ties for activ­i­ties that it autho­rizes; tax mar­i­juana sales; and ear­mark marijuana-​​related revenues.

Ini­tia­tive 502 would also insti­tute penal­ties for dri­ving under the influ­ence of mar­i­juana sim­i­lar to those for dri­ving under the influ­ence of alco­hol. Mar­i­juana tourism would cer­tainly become a pos­si­bil­ity if this ini­tia­tive passes and sur­vives an inevitable court challenge.

June Pub­lic Pol­icy Polling (PPP) sur­veys found 50 per­cent of Wash­ing­ton vot­ers in favor of this ini­tia­tive to 37 per­cent opposed.

Oregon’s Mea­sure 80: A Higher Tim­ber Line?

In Med­ford, Ore­gon, on March 21, 2008, a Pres­i­den­tial can­di­date named Barack Obama promised:

What I’m not going to be doing is using Jus­tice Depart­ment resources to try to cir­cum­vent state laws on this issue sim­ply because I want folks to be inves­ti­gat­ing vio­lent crimes and poten­tial ter­ror­ism. We’ve got a lot of things for our law enforce­ment offi­cers to deal with.

(My favorite part of this inter­view? The Med­ford Mail-​​Tribune head­lined it, “He favors long-​​term timber-​​payments solu­tion”, strong sup­port for Tip O’Neill’s famous maxim.)

The Ore­gon Cannabis Tax Act (OCTA), Mea­sure 80 on this year’s Ore­gon bal­lot, cre­ates an Ore­gon Cannabis Com­mis­sion to over­see the legal use of mar­i­juana. [The law’s text is here.]

The initiative’s sup­port­ers assert that Ore­gon spends $61.5 mil­lion annu­ally enforc­ing mar­i­juana laws. They claim OCTA would gen­er­ate over $140 mil­lion annu­ally. As an addi­tional ben­e­fit, OCTA would sup­port the agri­cul­tural hemp indus­try with a direct 2 per­cent sub­sidy. Ninety per­cent of the Act’s rev­enue would go to the gen­eral fund, with slices for drug edu­ca­tion (1 per­cent) and treat­ment pro­grams (7 percent).

In early July, PPP found that 43 per­cent of Ore­go­ni­ans were in favor and 46 per­cent opposed to OCTA.

COLORADO Amend­ment 64: SMOKE ONE FOR THE KIDS

Col­orado Amend­ment 64 is “The Reg­u­late Mar­i­juana Like Alco­hol Act of 2012″. It pro­poses amend­ing the Col­orado State Con­sti­tu­tion to legal­ize mar­i­juana, which is now legal for med­i­c­i­nal pur­poses and is decrim­i­nal­ized for other pur­poses. The bal­lot state­ment reads,

Shall there be an amend­ment to the Col­orado con­sti­tu­tion con­cern­ing mar­i­juana, and, in con­nec­tion there­with, pro­vid­ing for the reg­u­la­tion of mar­i­juana; per­mit­ting a per­son twenty-​​one years of age or older to con­sume or pos­sess lim­ited amounts of mar­i­juana; pro­vid­ing for the licens­ing of cul­ti­va­tion facil­i­ties, prod­uct man­u­fac­tur­ing facil­i­ties, test­ing facil­i­ties, and retail stores; per­mit­ting local gov­ern­ments to reg­u­late or pro­hibit such facil­i­ties; requir­ing the gen­eral assem­bly to enact an excise tax to be levied upon whole­sale sales of mar­i­juana; requir­ing that the first $40 mil­lion in rev­enue raised annu­ally by such tax be cred­ited to the pub­lic school cap­i­tal con­struc­tion assis­tance fund; and requir­ing the gen­eral assem­bly to enact leg­is­la­tion gov­ern­ing the cul­ti­va­tion, pro­cess­ing, and sale of indus­trial hemp?

In PPP polling con­ducted in August, 47 per­cent sup­ported the amend­ment, with 38 per­cent opposed.

Mon­tana IR-​​124: One Lit­tle Tiny Universe

In 2004, Mon­tana vot­ers approved a med­ical mar­i­juana ini­tia­tive. The State Leg­is­la­ture has tried to strike down that ini­tia­tive, and so med­ical mar­i­juana sup­port­ers have brought for­ward Mon­tana IR-​​124 to repeal the Legislature’s repeal. It’s almost as mind­blow­ing as the rev­e­la­tion “Pinto” (Tom Hulce) had when first smok­ing pot with Prof. Jen­nings (Don­ald Suther­land) in 1978’s Ani­mal House:

That means…one tiny atom in my fin­ger­nail could be…could be one little…tiny universe.

Could I buy some pot from you?

The text on the ballot:

In 2004, Mon­tana vot­ers approved I-​​148, cre­at­ing a med­ical mar­i­juana pro­gram for patients with debil­i­tat­ing med­ical con­di­tions. Sen­ate Bill 423, passed by the 2011 Leg­is­la­ture, repeals I-​​148 and enacts a new med­ical mar­i­juana pro­gram, which includes: per­mit­ting patients to grow mar­i­juana or des­ig­nate a provider; lim­it­ing each mar­i­juana provider to three patients; pro­hibit­ing mar­i­juana providers from accept­ing any­thing of value in exchange for ser­vices or prod­ucts; grant­ing local gov­ern­ments author­ity to reg­u­late mar­i­juana providers; estab­lish­ing spe­cific stan­dards for demon­strat­ing chronic pain; and review­ing the prac­tices of doc­tors who cer­tify mar­i­juana use for 25 or more patients in a 12-​​month period.

If Sen­ate Bill 423 is affirmed by the vot­ers, there will be no fis­cal impact because the leg­is­la­ture has funded the costs of its imple­men­ta­tion. If Sen­ate Bill 423 is rejected by the vot­ers, there may be a small sav­ings to the State.

Mass­a­chu­setts Ques­tion 3 Is Pretty NORML

Mass­a­chu­setts Ques­tion 3 is a pretty straight­for­ward med­ical mar­i­juana ini­tia­tive, with pro­vi­sions sim­i­lar to those now legal in 17 other states (map at right). Pub­lic Pol­icy Polling’s mid-​​August poll found 58 per­cent in favor, 27 per­cent opposed, and 15 per­cent unde­cided. It seems almost cer­tain to pass.

It will be inter­est­ing to see a com­par­i­son of the out­come of mar­i­juana legal­iza­tion efforts in Col­orado, Ore­gon and Wash­ing­ton. Bal­lot mea­sures in all three states are quite far along the legal­iza­tion spec­trum, com­pa­ra­ble to the Cal­i­for­nia effort (Propo­si­tion 19 of 2010) which was defeated 46.5 to 53.5. Recent opin­ion polling in Cal­i­for­nia shows a bare major­ity of vot­ers still pre­fer the sta­tus quo, med­ical mar­i­juana with decriminalization.

Where do you feel the bal­ance between mar­i­juana legal­iza­tion and states’ rights lies?

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