'Marijuana Legalization Measure' Won't Legalize Marijuana
Should it be approved by voters in November, the Tax, Regulate and Control Cannabis Act of 2010 - also known as Proposition 19 - would do many things. It would allow adults 21 and over to possess small amounts of cannabis, it would allow law enforcement to pursue new penalties against adults providing pot to minors, and it would splinter the already-fractious cannabis legalization movement (the latter's already done-and-done)
Say what?
But something it won't do? Legalize cannabis.
Not once does the word "legalize" appear in the text of the ballot measure submitted to the Attorney General a year ago. Not once does the word "legalize" appear on the Yes on 19 website. Some might call this semantics, but it's significant -- and deliberate.
"We wanted to stay away from the L-word," said ballot co-sponsor Jeff Jones, when he spoke at at a recent Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club meeting in San Francisco. Any act lessening criminal penalties on marijuana use and cultivation was bound to be contentious enough, Jones said, so stepping back from full-blown legalization was a strategic move.
Does Proposition 19 make cannabis legal -- like alcohol, like cigarettes, like tomatoes, candy, or baseball cards? Yes and no. There will be strict limits on how much cannabis an adult can possess or cultivate, with a gram one way or the other providing the difference between legality and jail.
While those restrictions are tougher than those on, say, alcohol or cigarettes, those are the two "legal" but restricted commodities on which California's "legal" pot model would be based, according to Dan Newman, a political consultant with SCN Strategies.
"The words control, tax, and regulate are more accurate and descriptive," Newman wrote in an e-mail. "So we focus on how Prop. 19 will control marijuana like alcohol, and permit similar taxes and regulations, while maintaining strict penalties for driving under the influence, increasing the penalty for providing marijuana to minors, and preserving an employer's right to maintain a drug-free workplace."
That hasn't stopped the media from ignoring "tax and control" and instead running with the L-word. Take a look at the media reports concerning Prop 19 - from straight news stories to analysis pieces, op-eds written by stoners and cops alike as well as letters to the editor: the L-word runs rampant. This mistake was repeated today by the nation's wire service of record, the Associated Press, which wrote that the bill will "legalize recreational use of marijuana."
The Attorney General may be partly to blame for this. In what is possibly the first "official" use of the L-word in connection to Prop. 19, the state-supplied Voter Information Guide -- which should be making a cameo in registered voters' mailboxes in the coming weeks shortly before settling into permanent homes in their recycling bins or landfill -- says Prop. 19 will "Legalize cannabis under California, not federal law."
How'd the L-word pop up in the voter guide if it wasn't mentioned once in the initiative or the petition approved for circulation? As far as the state is concerned, legal is legal, whether or not a gram one way or the other suddenly makes legal illegal, according to Christine Gasparac, spokeswoman for the Attorney General's Office. "That [above] statement succinctly, fairly, and accurately conveys what Prop. 19 would do, and it uses easily understandable wording," she wrote in an e-mail, without clarifying further.
Is it significant that the Attorney General - as well as the media, law enforcement, and politicians of all stripes - use language specifically omitted from the ballot measure by its authors?
"Not a big deal at all," Newman wrote.
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