All they have to do to keep Republicans on board is make the argument on the grounds of states' rights, individual liberty, and fiscal responsibility. I've made that argument with some of the most traditional Republicans I know and won over more than a few converts. If your mind is at all open it's hard to reject the logic behind legalizing marijuana as an alternative to raising taxes. If it also means thumbing your noses at the feds then in the current environment it's a real winner.
The California GOP doesn't have to be this creative. They can stay in their safe little box and probably do respectably in the fall. It won't be all that hard to beat Governor Moonbeam again. But in other states Republicans are anticipating extraordinary victories. A cautious strategy will leave California far behind other state Republican parties in the gains they rack up. Seizing the initiative and endorsing Proposition 19 would drive them to such a dominant victory over the Democrats that they would make history and leave every other state party green with envy.
Desperate times call for desperate measures and setting timidity aside. Why not be bold? Why not be defiant? Why not strike a blow for liberty?
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - roger nowosielski
Jerry Brown must be reacting to his own past as a pothead.
2 - Rubblebeam
C'mon Republicans, you can do this, I have only voted Dem once, please don't let this turn into a habit!
3 - Dr Dreadful
Can't see either party swinging behind this. It would require too much thinking outside the bong.
4 - Baronius
"All they need to do is put aside the archaic idea that marijuana is somehow immoral"
Really, Dave? That's been settled, we've finally overthrown the old-fashioned idea that drugs ruin lives? It must have been due to all the academic and professional success of potsmokers, the evidence that marijuana isn't addictive or harmful, and the discovery that no one commits serious crimes when they're high.
5 - Dave Nalle
Baromius, do you want to ban alcohol, then? Alcohol is more addictive and more damaging to the user than marijuana and it's legal. So long as that is true there is zero rational justification for a ban on marijuana.
Dave
6 - Clean_Living
90% of statistics are made up on the spot. And 88% of them are about the Drug War.
Opponents of the Drug War are making up statistics out of whole cloth. They are badly misusing and manipulating statistics in order to press their case.
Opponents of the Drug War rely on a few central claims in arguing for the legalization of drugs. One is that “the Drug War is causing violence in Mexico”. Sorry legalizers. Drug users are causing the violence in Mexico. Another is that “prohibition has failed,” and that therefore we should stop criminalizing drug use. I suppose legalizers would also support decriminalizing child abuse. then, when a user isn't able to get his dose, he could cause brain damage to a child with a well worn pair of brass knuckles. But hye! At least it would be legal. But perhaps the most oft-heard claim is that drugs are “less dangerous” than tobacco and alcohol. Drug War opponents make this claims armed with reams of statistics. Alas, they are misreading and misrepresenting the data at hand.
“Hard drugs are less harmful than alcohol and tobacco.” (We’ll leave marijuana out of this for now.) This claim is a mainstay of the anti-Drug War arsenal of arguments. “Alcohol, tobacco, more dangerous than illegal drugs,” reports a piece on CBS News. Another anti-drug war outlet, drugwarfacts.org, highlights the fact that alcohol kills far more people than hard drugs in any given year. True/Slant’s own Allison Kilkenny, in a comment on a post that she wrote arguing for the legalization of drugs, said that “cocaine isn’t any more dangerous than alcohol, tobacco, and/or unhealthy foods like trans fat,” and then used the figures cited above as proof.
Yet this is a deceptive way to present the data, and a little simple arithmetic proves this.
Let’s first accept the claim, made by Drugwarfacts.org, that 85,000 Americans die per year as a result of alcohol use, and that 17,000 die as a result of hard drugs. According to the data from drugwarfacts.org, 128.97 million Americans drink in a given month. (We’ll go with monthly statistics, because those count more regular drinkers.) If 85,000 of those 128.97 million die as a result of drinking in a given year, that means that the annual death rate from drinking is .0659%.
Now let’s look at hard drugs. Drugwarfacts.org tells us that 2.4 million Americans use cocaine, crack, or heroin " so-called “hard drugs” " in a given month. If 17,000 die annually as a result, then the annual death rate from hard drugs is .708%. In other words, hard drug use is many times more dangerous than alcohol use. And bear in mind that these figures are based on statistics provided by an organization that supports the legalization of drugs.
Of course, anyone who has ever known a serious drug addict will recognize how deadly hard drugs are. That’s why Drug War opponents have use “data” to make a case that seems fallacious on its face. But by failing to account for the fact that alcohol is much more widely used than hard drugs, drug war opponents are misrepresenting the facts: they are failing to account for per-capita deaths. This would be akin to claiming that driving a car down the highway is more dangerous than taking a barrel over Niagra Falls, because 26,000 Americans die per year in car crashes, and only a few have died in barrel accidents.
We live in an era where “expertise” is a vaunted trait. Arguments are more readily accepted if they are backed up with data and statistics. That’s why Drug War opponents like to cite numbers such as the ones above to press their case.
But, in this case, the opponents of the War on Drugs are badly misrepresenting substantive data. Talk about substance abuse.
7 - Dr Dreadful
What should morality have to do with anything, Baronius? What happened to this Free Will your Church is always offering up as the explanation for why seven-eighths of the world's population hasn't been struck down by thunderbolts despite not being Catholic?
What a person does to their own body is their own business. The existing criminal code should surely be adequate to deal with whatever that person might do next.
8 - Dr Dreadful
Clean_Living: (We’ll leave marijuana out of this for now.)
For now? You never put it back in.
The article discusses a proposition to legalize marijuana. Yet you base your argument solely on the effects of hard drugs, specifically disregarding marijuana.
That's both disingenuous and a straw man.
Unless, perhaps, you'd care to follow it up by providing some figures comparing the death rate from marijuana use with that from alcohol use.
9 - Clean_Living
Dr_Dreadful - You think you are very clever don't you? One is three automobile deaths is caused by THC being in a persons body when they die needlessly in a wreck. But they don't just take kill themselves do they? No, they often times take children with them. So shove that in your pipe and smoke it druggie.
10 - Dr Dreadful
And 75% of fatal crashes involved the use of alcohol. Your point?
11 - Conservative Christian
All of the prohibitionists’ arguments boil down to a single point: If my child (or yours) gets a little off track and starts using marijuana, the prohibitionists want to put them in PRISON. Prison is not good for my kids or for yours, and it’s much worse than the effects of marijuana, so we can pretty well disregard all of the prohibitionist nonsense about keeping it illegal “to protect the children.” I hope my kids steer clear of marijuana, but I REALLY hope that if they do use a little marijuana, they don't end up in prison and don't have to pay the prohibitionist “treatment” cronies in order to remain free and productive.
If you're a California citizen (or if you want to pass this along to any California citizens), Californians can register to vote by completing the online form and mailing it to the address on the form.
12 - Miles
Hey Clean_living, I agree, Cocaine and Heroin suck. I don't think many people push for those to be legalized. I personally know the hardships of opiate-related drug use. It isn't a pleasant place. (No better or worse than Alcohol personally)
But some "Drugs" are illegal for no reason besides the fact they get you "High" Just ONE of those is Marijuana(Yes, there are others), the one you left out of your argument....In response to an article about Marijuana... I wonder why...
"One is three automobile deaths is caused by THC being in a persons body when they die needlessly in a wreck."
I can go drive right now, sober and clean, and get in a wreck. I smoked a few days ago. THC WOULD be in mys system. Plus, most of these accidents have alcohol involved too. It's a sorry argument. Especially when it lacks a source.
13 - Clean_Living
Dr. Dreadful - Your myopic short sightedness is easily predictable. My point is that children shouldn't needlessly have to die in fiery car crashes because you can't get through your day without a dose of reefer.
14 - Clean_Living
Conservative Christian (yeah right) - What you socialist libturds have the rest of us do? Would you like to go around smoking reefers and killing children? But then when you get thrown into prison for being a terrifying menace, you want the rest of us to pay for your treatment? Pfffft!
15 - Dr Dreadful
Clean_Living: Do you always resort to personal abuse to respond to those who disagree with you?
Your assumption that I am a 'druggie' is also predictable.
And your point is blunt, because children (sob) shouldn't needlessly have to die in fiery car crashes for whatever reason. Accidents happen, though, sadly. And a significantly larger number of them are caused by alcohol than are caused by marijuana. Those are the facts, sunshine.
16 - Miles
"Dr. Dreadful - Your myopic short sightedness is easily predictable. My point is that children shouldn't needlessly have to die in fiery car crashes because you can't get through your day without a dose of reefer."
I feel a bit of...false dilemma coming about. Maybe some ad hominem.
Why do you feel the need to attack people, as you just did to Conservative Christian? Do you realize your argument is lacking so that's the only alternative?
You truly sound ignorant. "Would you like to go around smoking reefers and killing children?" and anyone who reads that line will be able to tell.
But now I know that whenever someone tokes up, they've magically transformed into a terrifying menace.
I find you to be more of a menace than any average toker. Misinformation and ignorance is deadly.
17 - Clean_Living
Whatever man.
18 - Miles
Ah! A response that finally -somewhat- makes sense! If I were this ignorant and misinformed, I'd concede too.
19 - Clean_Living
I concede nothing. I have made my irrefutable points. And you people have made no effort to respond to them. I have done my part. Now, you will have to deal with Jesus on the day of judgement (or at the moment of your death in a fiery, reefer inspired car wreck) for not heeding my word. You can consider me Christ's front man. You had your chance druggie.
20 - Dr Dreadful
I'm starting to get the impression that Clean_Living is pulling our legs...
21 - Miles
What the hell are you supposed to be? "for not heeding my word" You make yourself sound like a prophet of God. Stop assuming, it makes you look more of a tool than you already are. I'm Christian, and people like you are why non-Christians have such a distaste for Christianity. Your love for your religion consumes your love for fellow humans and for God. For being Christ's front man you don't seem to follow his teachings of love. Maybe you mix up your silly personal attacks for love.
Look, none of your points are absolute and irrefutable, we argued them, and you plugged your ears and hummed to yourself. Both myself, and Dr, responded. Ironically, YOU did not. Your argument is flawed, full of half-truths, and lacks all logic... come to think of it...
I'm starting to assume you are a troll, and can no longer be taken seriously, no one could be this intentionally stupid. I'd rather no longer waste my time with a silly troll.
22 - Miles
Indeed mate, now I feel silly for being trolled so well. It happens to me on such issues though, oh well.
23 - Yes on 19
I hardly ever agree with anything Republicans believe in, but totally agree with stopping the idiotic, wasteful war on Cannabis. See, we can have a bipartisan issue with can ALL believe in...Yes on 19.
24 - Dr Dreadful
Indeed mate, now I feel silly for being trolled so well.
It was when he crossed the rhetorical line from ineptitude into caricature that I started to wonder... :-)
25 - Baronius
Dread, free will doesn’t obviate the need for government. Even I admit that there has to be a government for some things. It’s part of my duty as a member of a free society to promote the policies that I think would be good.
I’m ambivalent about the prohibition of alcohol. As a practical matter, it doesn’t work, and there’s no reason for a government to try to do the impossible. But I’d have no problem moving to a “dry” county, or voting that way.
As a conservative, I don’t want to see laws get worse, so I don’t want to see marijuana become legal. I want to conserve the best of the laws and traditions we have. It’s a delicate balance. The deciding factor in this case is that it’s not my state. We can trust the voters of California to mess up horribly, because they usually do, but it’s their call.