I support the full legalization of marijuana, but I have no illusions as to how this change will eventually play out.

Large cannabis capitalists will quickly eat up or rub out all the small fry. The tobacco industry will likely drop tobacco and switch over to marijuana.

It's only a matter of time until tobacco becomes a fringe activity, in view of the terrible health hazards from tobacco smoke, which no informed person can any longer doubt. The tobacco industry knows this better than anyone else. Marijuana will give them a chance to salvage their economic position.

The precedent for the mega capitalists taking over marijuana is the history of the tobacco industry itself. People used to grow and roll their own tobacco. Eventually huge corporations muscled their way into the practice, changed the nature of the product, and pushed it in a way as to promote its addictiveness.

The same thing will happen with marijuana. Why not? Billions of dollars of profit will be the incentive, as with tobacco.

Along the way, California will become even more a state of stoners than it already is, and the U.S. will eventually follow suit. Americans will be as hooked on marijuana as they were on cigarettes in the 1950s.

It's not an inspiring future to contemplate, in regard either to the greed of the cannabis capitalists or the befogged mental state of the stoners.

However, it's the wave of the future and cannot be stopped.

Whether all of this is wise is, of course, another question. But who even thinks in such terms anymore?

1919-1933 was a bloody era of violence and killings that started to decline only when the Volstead Act was finally repealed.

Why was it ever enacted? Because the first feminist movement in the United States, the Women's Temperance Union, bolstered by church and other social engineering movements argued correctly that alcohol was extremely addictive and led to family distress, unemployment and violence against women and children.

In 1923 the executive council of the American Federation of Labor issued an address to the American people after an exhaustive investigation of the effects of the Volstead Act. It was shown by this investigation that there had been–––

A general disregard of the law among all classes of people, including those who made the law.

Creation of thousands of moonshiners among both country and city dwellers.

The creation of an army of bootleggers.

An amazing increase in the traffic in poisons and deadly concoctions and drugs.

An increased rate of insanity, blindness, and crime among the users of these concoctions and drugs.

Increase in taxes to city, State, and National Government amounting to approximately $1,000,000,000 per year.

Source: THE NATIONAL PROHIBITION LAW HEARINGS April 5 to 24, 1926
http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/History/e1920/senj1926/roberts.html

Since prohibition was repealed, there have still been problems with alcohol addiction along with associated health issues, but the vast majority of people's drinking has not led to the downfall of society. If we can handle the regulation of alcohol, one of the most powerful, addictive and dangerous of drugs, we can handle just about anything, and that includes cocaine and amphetamines.

And everything is readily available right now to all of us anyway. Drugs of all varieties are cheap and plentiful, and the basic economics of drug dealing remain: Take one dealer off the street, and another takes his place. Something that simply doesn't happen for other more real crimes, such as murder, embezzlement or burglary.

Historically, the prohibition of any mind altering substance has never succeeded in providing what is needed, which is a safer environment for the addict, the family and society at large. It always has, and always will, spawn far worse conditions than those it claims to be able to alleviate.

I've attended numerous trials and hearings regarding medical pot, from Federal to State to Appellate Court, and the one thing judges agree on is that medical pot is caught between terrible Federal laws and confusing, conflicting, and outright goofy state laws. This new law is more about taxation and not legalization. I am also annoyed at the idea that we have to have either no organized grows or be forced to buy from huge warehouse growers (who got their funding from organized crime, and aren't worried about sick people, and thus, will collude to keep supplies low and prices high). Why is it everything we have must be commodified and taxified and fee'd to death? Can't we leave some things to share a bit more, in this time of need? People really need pot, the world is becoming more and more strange and hostile for too many. Don't make it so expensive that organized crime and lawyers are the only ones who benefit from pot. Grow it, share it with your friends.

But first, we need to tell our Congresscritters that they have had long enough to do something useful and take pot off the Schedule law, where it never should have been. There is no morbidity and mortality associated with even the heavy use of pot, and therefore, there is no legal, moral, or ethical reason for pot, which is a herb used medicinally and recreationally (Marinol is a drug. Drugs can be synthesized or made from herbs). Those states that wish to keep pot illegal are free to do so. Let's keep in mind it is the high price of pot that attracts criminals to it. By growing so much people share without hoarding, without mendacity, the criminals have no incentive to deal with it.

So, when you're voting this November, ask yourself what has Pelosi done? Boxer? Feinstein? That's right, nothing. Taell anyone who asks for your vote that you will not vote for any candidate without a promise that he or she will remove pot from Federal persecution. If enough people do that, we can get the Federal law changed now.

Ask yourself who is against that. ONly those who profit off the artificial scarcity, who pimped sick people to get voter approval and then did nothing to help sick people get the medical pot they needed. This proposition truly sucks, and should not be voted into law. It puts intolerable restrictions on use and this will make life even more difficult for many, if not most, legitimate patients, to benefit wealthy recreational users and drug dealers looking for more money laundering.

Ask yourself where all the fees (the difference between a fee and a tax is that a tax must be voted on, and the money collected must be accounted for, and a fee is for lining the pockets of political careerists) collected from patients have gone. Most of the critically ill patients I have known in the decade I have been a patient have had to make difficult choices between buying medication and paying for food and shelter. The dispensaries can't afford to give away as much as they used to, because they are being taxed and fee'd to death (the DEA shut down maybe half a dozen clubs over the years in SF, and the City rules shut down over 2 dozen).

cui bono?

NO ON 19
FREE THE WEED/NO TAXATION WITHOUT LEGALIZATION

As I read this , it really turns my stomack really to the boiling point... it talks about the medical patients being able to obtain it at S55.00 for an 1/8th...

For all the store fronts to be able to tax it and sell it so that they only can profit from it along with the cities and counties that is if they approve of it in thier areas.

As a long time utalizer of cannabis and activist, along with land to grow my own, and also allow others to grow along side of me,, whom only pay for the materials needed to grow and not the cannabis,,, how would this affect me and others like my husband whom grows... the law allows now for us to do this... and now with Prop 19, once passed this will stop all persons to grow unless they grow for a store front aproved by the counties and the cities within the counties of the state of CAliofrnia...
I for one thing can not grow my own,, my husband is the grower.. but for the rest of us.. whom are not able to grow will be forced into the market place and be forced to pay the price .. and pretty soon only the ones whom are able to pay will be able to obtain it... how is this good for the low income citizens whom are forced to live on low income due to their illness and most of us had worked hard all our life before the illness set in...???
I personally will NOT vote for prop 19 due to the fact of some things in it that i just can not stomack it... for one thing in the presence of a minor, another thing that i would not be able to grow what is needed to care for my illness.
i am not for legalization, at all.. i am for the medical purposes of cannabis not for the glory of others to make a profit off of those whom benifit from cannabis.sales.. i say.. lets find another way... not prop 19.. but i know that most won't because greed is behind this prop...dollar signs , if this was meant to be a booming business then it would have been like this many years ago..and treated like a business that sells liqure and cigaretts but its not... you will still be arrested.. so what has changed? Easier for them, to arrest us for growing more than a 24 ft square..and cut down our freedoom to grow our own and be forced to go to the store and pay taxes. i don't pay taxes on my needles, my pharmacuticle drugs,, why should i now pay taxes on cannabis? Unless i have lots of money to start a business , only then will i benifit... yes .. once again.. greed has taken the compassion out of careing for the sick... hm.... this will only bring in more trouble than a solution.....

There are many people in SF with good hearts who have tried to make cannabis accessible in a humane way. Despite all their good intentions, they have paved the way for the mega capitalists to steal the show. These will muscle their way in and rub out the people with good intentions.

Doubt it? Look at the history of the alcohol industry after prohibition was repealed. Look at the history of the tobacco industry. Does anyone think that things will be any different with marijuana?

Prohibition doesn't work. We all know that. There are huge numbers of people who want to get drunk and/or stoned, and a significant number of them are addicts. No law will ever be able to dissuade them.

The alternative to prohibition is corporate exploitation of the marketplace. Giant corporations create dependence on their products, eliminate competition, jack up prices, exploit workers, and befoul the environment. Such will the be the pattern with marijuana, once it's legalized.

So thanks to all of you who acted with good intentions in regard to marijuana. You have paved the way for the sharks, and they are about to eat you up.

It's the American way.

That is a specious argument. One need to look no further than the microbrew market to realize just how full of it you are. I just got back from Costco where I bought my favorite low-carbon beverage, Anchor Steam. Maybe your America looks to giant corporations for their products but where I live we are more interested in local artisan-produced products. After the passage of this law I will be looking for the Keep Mendo Green label and you are free to shop at Walmart/K-mart/Best Buy etc. for your Monsanto-grown cannabis produced in a factory by exploited workers. Freedom of choice is the American way!

Thank you for your comments above, Steven.

You say:

"I need to correct your original analogy to tobacco, which was largely a corporate-controlled export commodity from the early colonial days. While there were and are small tobacco farmers, they never controlled that industry the way that small growers and dealers have always controlled the marijuana industry."

Wrong. Tobacco was originally used by the American Indians, before the coming of the Europeans and the later development of either farms or corporations.

The Indians used tobacco in ceremonial contexts and as gifts. It never became a mass-produced commercial commodity with them. No corporation controlled the market. It was a totally autonomous affair.

Later, the European invaders created small farms for growing tobacco. Later still, these were supplanted by large plantations, which were in turn supplanted by big corporations. Agribusiness prevailed.

As noted in my earlier post, even among the European invaders, tobacco consumption was different from today. The smoke was not originally inhaled into the lungs.

Also, it took some effort to light up a cigarette - requiring tinder and rock or metal to generate a spark. It became much easier to consume cigarettes in a large-scale, addictive manner with the invention of an important adjunct - matches.

There's no reason to think that the cannabis capitalists won't follow the pattern of the tobacco capitalists. They will do everything in their power to push cannabis on everyone, make it more addictive, and create adjunct technologies that make it more amenable to compulsive, addictive behavior.

Along the way, they will reap many billions of dollars in profit. Any group that tries to recreate the good-old-days of home grown cannabis will be seen as quirky and backward-looking, just as some folks today view the original practices of the American Indians.

Prohibition didn't work. It's time for it to go.

But don't kid yourself. The future belongs to the big-time cannabis capitalists.

They will make everyone an offer they can't refuse.

Thank you, Dr. Robert, for your continuing contributions to this thread.

In a post above, you say:

"Cannabis is NOT addictive."

There are degrees of addictiveness. Cannabis is mildly addictive. Tobacco is severely addictive.

With drugs that are mildly addictive, many people can use them and not have any problems. However, a significant number will.

With drugs that are severely addictive, all users will become addicted after a certain threshold of use is passed.

Over the years, I have personally known people, some very close to me, who used pot on a regular basis, who wanted to stop, but couldn't. Their pot use screwed up their lives, they knew it, and they couldn't change. This is addiction.

Let's legalize pot and allow people to make their own decisions about using it. But let's not kid ourselves about the basic facts of life.

So it comes down to this?

If Prop 19 fails it will be because of a split between the potheads themselves.

The "Medical" folks have a good thing going and they don't want to see it messed up. It's the "I got's mine" syndrome.

Come on!

We have been persecuted and imprisoned together for years and now you are just kicking your brother's to the curb. The boy's were right when they once said he'll..."Steal your face right of your head."

VOTE YES ON 19

The feds have not yet completed their fight....I have a friend who works at a large bank, these banks are federally regulated. They are currently working with the federal government to shut down the ability of dispensaries to deposit funds into these banks based on the federal illegality of marijuana. What are the dispensaries going to do when they lose the ability to deposit and manage funds in the banking system? Back to a cash system only?

Wouldn't legalization bring down the price for everyone, including medical patients? I'm not in favor of all the taxing and regulation but it takes incremental change to change the status quo. It's also required to make it more palatable to the general public. I'll take regulation, control, and taxation over prison any day.

I understand the frustration of those who want to get stoned without any hassles. Stoners are entitled to befog their minds if they want to, just like boozers.

The law should be changed to let them do so. Equal opportunity for all forms of dumbing down, that's what I say!

So let's approve this initiative. But let's not stop thinking about the larger picture.

SF is a drug-sick, alcohol-sick city. It has one of the highest rates of addiction and alcoholism for a city its size in the nation.

Nearly ever San Franciscan, in every walk of life, knows someone who has a problem with drugs and/or alcohol. Nearly all the people living on the streets are addicts or alcoholics.

Look at all the energy that goes into making drugs more accessible in SF, as opposed to the energy that goes into creating a life of sanity and balance.

Why the imbalance? Why the taboo on discussing the extent of the city's problem with drugs and alcohol?

And how did it happen that so many of those who claim to be the vanguard of progress in SF politics are so often stoned or drunk out of their minds?

Socrates was right after all:

"For a human being, the unexamined life is not worth living."

Bummer, huh?