At this time most of the major races have been decided- victories announced and defeats conceded.
Thankfully, Meg Whitman wasted all that money and couldn’t convince California she would be as good of a Governor as Jerry Brown. The Democratic win was extremely important for California, second only to the Steve Cooley/Kamala Harris race for Attorney General. This nail-bitingly close call had some terrifying twists and turns. Initial reports I was following online showed Harris trailing. Cooley even went as far as to declare victory prematurely and in the middle of Tuesday night, his campaign team had to scramble to cancel a victory press conference.
Thankfully and wisely, Harris refused to concede and yesterday at 12:39pm, with 100% of precincts counted, announced her extremely slim lead at 0.2%! Officials must still tally absentee and provisional ballots but it looks like she will win. I’ll be keeping a close eye on this one.
I’m pretty disappointed Prop 19 didn’t pass. Up to the last day, I heard refusal to vote for it from people within the cannabis community and that makes me sad. Not only did we fail to outnumber the conservative, right-wing population that exists here in “liberal” California, but there was no unity within our community of patients and marijuana consumers. I discussed the motives behind these groups in my previous blogs Vote on Prop 19 and PCC Medical Cannabis Voter Guide.
I can’t help but feel that, like Prop 8 the marriage inequality proposition of 2008, California has missed a major chance to lead the way with progressive legislation. Now Colorado will probably be the first state to legalize cannabis for adult use. And good for them- but it should have been Cali. We have a thriving medical cannabis industry, I don’t even think things would have even been that different if Prop 19 had passed. It’s not hard to buy cannabis now, or grow it. Commercial growing will increase anyway, cities like Berkeley and Oakland have both started regulating large, commercial medical cannabis cultivation facilities. Cannabis is everywhere and only becoming more sophisticated.
It is unfortunate that we are refusing additional tax money on a local level (as Prop 19 out-lined) and forcing healthy adults who wish to use cannabis to visit THC evaluators so they can buy regulated and taxed medical marijuana(which shouldn’t be taxed!). It’s backwards. On a national level, I think it’s use in this way helps cast a fraudulent and illegitimate light on the medical marijuana community.
I will be supporting the next ballot measure that promises legalization and I hope we, as patients and consumers of cannabis, can unite on that. Never again will the notion of legalization be an unrealistic one. I’m glad we have at least started the conversation.
Locally, Berkeley’s Measure S and Measure T both passed with quite a majority. As outlined in our previous articles Expanding Berkeley Medical Cannabis Ordinance- Taxation and Regulation and Protect Safe and Affordable Medicine in Berkeley- Vote No on Measure S and Measure T, we were opposed to raising the tax on your medicine further (patient’s already pay almost 10% sales tax) and voiced our concern over Berkeley City Council’s power grab on all decisions regarding medical marijuana in future. When thinking about the measures chances, we aren’t surprised they passed. Most voters probably thought raising the tax on cannabis sounded like a good idea (the measure including a provisional 10% tax on recreational cannabis if Prop 19 passed, as well as the medical tax hike of 5%). Measure S didn’t even have an opposing argument featured on the Berkeley ballot guide so almost automatically, voters would vote yes. Even another dispensary in Berkeley, the BPG, supported Measure T. According to BPG spokesman Brad Senesac, the chance to grow their own medicine and have more control over their product was enough reason to hand over full reigns to approval to Berkeley City Council, who’s record on MMJ issues has been spotty, to say the least.
We at Patients Care Collective will continue to fight for Berkeley’s patient’s rights, even though as voters, we may have lost that power. We also hope that medical cannabis will remain affordable in light of new taxes. Unfortunately, the pay cut that this staff took is now permanent. I hope Berkeley City Council realizes that the money they are collecting is coming straight from our pockets- us the patients and us the employees.
Many other California cities voted on local medical marijuana Measures. Oakland voted to pass Measure V which added a 5% tax on medical marijuana, San Jose passed a 10%(!!) added tax on MMJ, and Santa Barbara voted against a ban on MMJ dispensaries.
