Ten Reasons to Vote No

1. Proposition 19 isn’t really legalization. It only allows possession of up to one ounce of cannabis. Under current California law, an ounce or less of pot is a simple civil infraction — you CAN’T be arrested, you DON’T go to court, and you WON’T get a criminal record. Prop 19 doesn’t make any improvements to decriminalization or prop 215.

2. Prop 19 creates several new cannabis related crimes with extremely severe penalties. Don’t pass a joint to a 17 year old, you will be looking at a max of 7 years in state prison, seriously.

3. Prop 19 is solely designed to allow large scale cannabis production by politically connected corporations. Oakland has already started the process to license a Prop 19 Cartel mega-grow.

4. Most legal experts agree that Prop 19 is poorly written and will leave police and judges to enforce it at their discretion. For example, consuming cannabis would be illegal in the same “space” as a minor. Police and judges are free to interpret the word “space” to mean the same room, house, or entire apartment complex.

5. There is no need to rush into a law that will be difficult to change. There are better full legalization laws, including one set to be on the ballot in 2012.

6. Prop 19 will lead to the walmartization of the cannabis industry. And unfortunately, this will result in lower quality and fixed prices. Limited competition and government control will allow large scale growers to determine prices and dictate quality standards (or lack thereof).

7. Local governments will control the taxation, production, and distribution of cannabis. This is a touchy political issue; most local politicians won’t risk a backlash by allowing dispensaries in their city. This means many people will have to travel long distances or break the law to purchase cannabis.

8. Prop 19 will likely supersede prop 215, adversely affecting medical cannabis users by dictating grow size, possession amount, patient to patient sales, and location of use.

9. Unbiased cannabis activists do NOT support Prop 19. This includes the late Jack Herer and the co-author of prop 215, Dennis Peron (see his video here).

10. The federal government has decided to not prosecute medical cannabis users. This will not be the case if Prop 19 passes. Many people believe that the passage of Prop 19 will bring an aggressive response from the feds, perhaps putting medical users at risk of losing access to medicine.

Because they probably figure there are enough people living in their parents basement not working already.