Marijuana Legalization

The Los Angeles Occasions on January 30 published an write-up by John Hoeffel that focuses on a January 29th National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Law (NORML) conference in Berkley billed by some as a “legalization summit”. Hosted by NORML’s California chapter, the conference sought to initiate discussion on the 2012 state election and the initiative to legalize recreational use of marijuana in California. NORML’s aim at this conference was to reach out to Cannabis growers, disgruntled legalization activists, medical dispensaries and defense attorneys specializing in California marijuana law.

Culture is stated to be the set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an institution, organization or group. The culture of legal marijuana in California in 2011 revolves about the market of medical marijuana. Marijuana for medical purposes became a reality in the Golden State in 1996 and the industry of legal cannabis has grown and evolved the past 15 years. Livelihoods have been cultivated involving every single aspect of the legal marijuana enterprise an business that has verified to be quite lucrative considering that ahead of the end of the 20th century.

Proposition 19 failed in November 2010 by a 54-46% margin. A widely accepted believe for this is due in part to the failure of the movement to garner support from the growers, dispensary owners and defense attorneys specializing in cannabis law. Not only did they not speak out for the cause of Proposition 19, in a lot of situations they sided with the opposition. Infuential and effective sects of the California cannabis culture that felt, and deservedly so a lot of would say, that the drafting of the resolution was a closed approach that did not seek to consist of them.

The reality that this was the initial conference that California NORML has hosted in a decade speaks to the orgainzations need in California to try and get the frayed ends of the cannabis culture on the state level to all pull in the identical direction. “We knew there was a lot of dissatisfaction,” said Dale Gieringer, the organization’s California director who organized the conference. “A lot of folks felt excluded since the writing procedure of Proposition 19 was really closed.” Dale Sky Jones, the spokeswoman for the Proposition 19 campaign, told the crowd at the David Brower Center near the University of Cal-Berkley campus, “Really, this is a planning exercise. We’re here to hear you. This is the creating procedure.”

The truth of the matter is that in some situations very good portions of the voices at this conference openly joined in assistance of the opposition to the 2010 recreational marijuana initiative. Several of these groups felt that Proposition 19 did not include them, speak for them, shield their future industry marketplace share and most decidely did not appear out for the already established California legal marijuana culture. The concern of how they had been not included in the writing of the initiative naturally inspired the feeling by many that they were also not going to be included in what would be the new state order of this business.

The power shift that recreational marijuana could make with the business industry share brought on a legitimate fear. Fear, doubt and skepticism spread for what could and must be some of the recreational marijuana movement’s greatest supporters. Fear that produced these very same men and women really grow to be enemies of Proposition 19. The freedom to use marijuana for recreational purposes with out legal persecution in California is not the concern of these groups, they have already staked their livelihoods in the present day legal aspects and avenues of cannabis. The wants of these people and groups is to hold on to and if achievable enhance their market share with the passing of recreational marijuana. The fact that Proposition 19 was not going to totally deliver on both of these counts undoubtedly put the initiative in the crosshairs of the California legal marijuana proletariat, namely dispensaries and growers who are the operating class of cannabis culture.

The 1983 movie classic “Risky Organization”, contains a scene in between Tom Cruise’s character, a high school senior that is infatuated and manipulated by a call girl and her boss, aptly named Guido The Killer Pimp. Attempting to intimidate Joel, as nicely as give the uppper middle class teenager some valuable company suggestions , Guido quips to Joel “In a sluggish economy, in no way f*ck with another man’s livelihood.” Does NORML’s recent convention usher in the beginning of medical marijuana’s status quo embracing the idea that legal recreational marijuana will not hurt their cash flow? Time will tell nevertheless this is nonetheless a sluggish economy (when is it ever not) and the dream of legal recreational cannabis does not have a likelihood of becoming reality till the reigning pimps of California legal marijuana are persuaded that their livelihoods will not be compromised or their places in the legal marijuana culture usurped.