California voters reject legalization of marijuana

Good. Common sense prevails.

sad day for pot-heads and hippies...

Yes only pot heads want it legalized. Too bad for them.

Good. Common sense prevails.

That is quite a warped definition of common sense.

Instead, he said, legalization would lead to more addiction, driving accidents and emergency room admissions.

A drug czar who does not realize MJ is not physically addictive and that MJ causes about as many car accidents as changing radio stations? What a surprise. Not. I cannot even guess where the emergency room admissions thing comes in to play. Please raise your hand if you are silly enough to believe Gil's complete nonsense.

From the newspapers to the Fed to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (who have kneecapped Holland's attempt at drug law reform) these people do not have the best interests of the people at heart. Drug dealers and cartels have breathed a sigh of relief today. Ignorance and fear have won again.

Well said, 71077345

With the effects of marijuana on the brain being well documented (persistent decrements in memory, executive functioning of brain, psychomotor speed and manual dexterity, even after long periods of abstinence), this result was a smart one from the health point of view.

On the other hand, tobacco and alcohol are legal and long term use of these can also cause a whole host of problems. As for the drug dealers, with marijuana use being shown as a significant linking factor to higher level drug abuse and dependency, they'll no doubt move on to harder drugs and legalizing marijuana would have little to no effect on them.

The above findings on marijuana can easily be found in research papers, such as in Fergusson et.al. (Addiction, Apr 2006) and Bolla et.al. (Neurology, Nov 2010).

Thanks donkusai, I forgot all about the gateway theory. Oh, I just remembered why I forgot about it. Because its wrong.

Cause if its right then it also works for tobacco, alcohol, caffeine and sugar rushes, or would if they were illegal and you had to go to a drug dealer to get them. Look, some people move on and up. The same goes for sports, video games and sexual proclivities. Its hardly unique to drugs, and its no reason to go cracking down on MJ.

And no effect on drug dealers? MJ is a huge source of easy profit for them. Legalizing MJ will kill profits. They may rebound in the long run, but in the medium term, they will be weak and start resorting to infighting to be profitable again. The history of prohibition teaches us much. Getting rid of that stupid idea was the right thing to do.

Thanks donkusai, I forgot all about the gateway theory. Oh, I just remembered why I forgot about it. Because its wrong.

The research disagrees with you.

71077345, the only reason you think its wrong is because you want to believe it. No matter how many times you tell yourself something can't be true because you don't want it to be, doesn't make your truth become real. Thats why in pharmaceuticals we work to take the beneficial medical properties of the plant and put it into a less harmful form. Science exists for a reason, and thankfully the people of CA have determined legalising marijuana in its current form will only lead to more headaches than cures.

Advanced nations, advanced states (it is thought) make advanced decisions. Marijuana should not be 'privatized' Keep it illegal and underground and under control of the mob. Congratulations.

I think it's fine to not legalize it, but I really wish a measure to decriminalize marijuana would pass. Just think of all the time and resources of police officers, prosecutors, jails, etc. that could be freed up to be used on more serious crimes and criminals if they no longer had to waste their time on college kids and aging hippies smoking marijuana.

How Californians do this and elect Jerry "Moonbeam" Brown as their governor on the same day is beyond me...

"The research disagrees with you."

Maybe you did not know, but the research on this goes both ways. RAND December 2002, APA December 2006, etc.

The gateway drug theorists exercise the very typical fallacy of reversing cause and effect. People don't move on to cocaine because they tried cannabis. They just perceive (correctly) that cannabis is more mild, therefore try that one first. Some people fly on flight simulators before flying real airplanes not so much because the simulators made them want to fly, but because they already planned to fly in the first place. And most people who fly simulators never actually fly a real plane or intend to. A tiny few go on to real planes inspired by the simulator, a tiny few.

You also have to consider that since MJ is illegal, people already perceive themselves as criminals for smoking it, and so moving to something higher is not a stretch. Also, the sellers of MJ introduce the harder drugs. Those are the only parts of the gateway theory that have any merit and they are totally circular because they depend on MJ being illegal. Yet another fallacy.

Don't assume that all scientists are incapable of fallacy. In fact, most are not worth their degrees and their understanding of logic is sophomorish. If the logical side of your brain works at high enough level, you can see the gateway drug theorists have no case except for a small minority of cannabis users. Understand of that micro population is not especially useful for setting drug policy.

The truly disgusting part of this debate is that so many of those on the anti-marijuana side are worried about losing revenue (government, law enforcement, tobacco and alcohol sellers, etc.) while so few on the pro-side have anything to gain financially. Earlier I said fear and ignorance won. I neglected to mention greed won too. Big money has managed to make so many fearful and ignorant. Its sad that people are this blind.

Shame. We could radically alter the politics of both Mexico and canada by legalizing marijuana.

Yup just what I thought. Only pot heads want it legalized. The true addicts come out. So if it's so harmless why bother using it? It impairs you and it is not a food.

We could radically alter the politics of both Mexico and canada by legalizing marijuana.

Not really, it would simply become another traded commodity and the cartels would either start pushing another drug or they'd start smuggling it to avoid the tax on it. Criminals don't stop being criminals, they just find better ways of making money.