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Cali
ready for legal Herb?
Latest polls shows Yes is ahead
47-38
Polling has gone back and forth on
whether or not Californians actually want to legalize marijuana,
but the latest numbers show legalization's prospects looking up.
Proposition 19, the ballot initiative that would legalize personal
possession and growth statewide,
while allowing counties to individually legalize commercial sales,
enjoys a 47 -38 percent advantage
according to Public Policy Polling's September 14-16 automated phone
survey of 630 likely voters.
Margin of error was +/- 3.9 percent.
So here's where polling on
marijuana legalization stands: the poll with the largest sample sizes,
the only poll to use live interviews, showed legalization trailing
earlier this summer. Public Policy
Polling's automated survey, with a smaller sample size, shows it ahead.
PPP has had a decent
track record in predicting primary races this year, even though the
broader community of pollsters
and journalists tends to be skeptical of automated polls.
Prop. 19 still faces an uphill climb, as elections go, with an older,
more politically engaged electorate
expected to turn out in November. But the latest signs point both to a
flexible electorate and a viable
chance at winning, so there appears to be a solid chance pot will be
legal in California come November
I'm not holding my breath on this one.
The Yes vote is always
ahead, then at the last minute, some anti-pot billionaire
show up
with a big donation and a bunch of wild-ass scare stories and then
voters panic.
But it gets down to this:
California wants the
$1.3B in pot tax revenues or they don't.
California wants Mexican
gangs to be stronger or weaker - there's no middle choice.
California
wants the Invisible Cloud Being to be happy, or they're from this century.
California wants to
spend billons arresting and jailing people for inhaling - or they don't.
Too bad they don't have any high-profile people on their side.
