Major shift: California leans toward marijuana legalization

[babsbunny]

Major shift: California leans toward marijuana legalization

By John Byrne
Sunday, October 10th, 2010 -- 9:21 am

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/10/major-shift-california-leans-marijuana-legalization/

A new Field Poll highlighted Sunday in The San Francisco Chronicle (whose site has crashed as of this writing) suggests that the tide has turned in favor of medical marijuana legalization.

"In a dramatic shift of sentiment, nearly half of California's likely voters now want to legalize marijuana use in the state, according to a new Field Poll," the site's authors write.

"The numbers have flipped (on Proposition 19) since our July poll," Mark DiCamillo, the poll's director, told the Chronicle. "That's a major change in the direction of public feelings on legalizing marijuana."

[slackmaster]

1. Most of the pro-legalization arguments are perfectly rational

The part about the state being able to collect a shit ton of tax revenue from cannabis commerce, not quite so rational.

[mdmc]

2. I hope this passes

and the GOP and DLC can look around all stupid..

[dmosh42]

3. Wow, imagine the money saved on crooked law enforcement, etc. n/t

[tridim]

4. I think there's a typo in the first sentence..

"medical marijuana" is already legal.

[RainDog]

5. Turn out of voters younger than 50-ish will make the difference

The graphs from the survey at your link indicate an OVERWHELMING majority of Democrats (60%) and an OVERWHELMING number of independents (also at 60%) support legalization. Those numbers are solidly for legalization no matter what the possible sampling error (i.e. those two groups are still far more than 50% when accounting for any possible sampling errors.)

All age groups under 50 poll in favor - an overwhelming majority in the 18 to 39 range and a majority in the 40 to 49 range.

Hopefully this issue matters enough to people in those age groups to get them out to the polls on election day.