Californians rejected on Tuesday a proposal to make their famously laid-back US state the world’s first to fully legalize marijuana — with outgoing California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger among those against.
The so-called Proposition 19 — one of a series of referendums held at the same time as midterm polls — was rejected by 57 percent against 43 percent in favor, CNN said, while Fox News and the Los Angeles Times also forecast a No vote.
Growing and selling marijuana for medicinal purposes has been legal here since 1996, but backers of legalizing it totally — including consumption, cultivation and trade — campaigned hard for “Prop 19” to be passed.
PHOTO: AFP
The proposal would have allowed people aged 21 and over to possess up to 28g of marijuana and grow up to 2.32m2 of pot plants.
Supporters of the measure — which drew widespread backing among the young, but opposition from older voters — sought to put a brave face on the ballot defeat.
“The fact that millions of Californians voted to legalize marijuana is a tremendous victory,” said Richard Lee, proponent of the referendum proposal, adding that he would mount a similar bid two years from now. “We have broken the glass ceiling. Prop 19 has changed the terms of the debate and that was a major strategic goal.”
“With limited resources this time around we were able to build an enormously powerful coalition ... This coalition will only continue to grow in size and strength as we prepare for 2012,” Lee added.
Large-scale commercial cultivation — and its taxation — could also have been allowed, though implementing such a rule would have been left to the discretion of local municipal and county authorities.
Prop 19 supporters included a broad range of politicians, unions and rights groups — as well as billionaire philanthropist George Soros, who backed the “Yes” campaign with US$1 million of his own money.
Despite the support, a recent opinion poll showed the no vote ahead by 49 percent to 44 percent — an unexpected blow for the Yes campaign, which had led surveys for months.
Opponents included all the main candidates to succeed Schwarzenegger as California governor and for the state’s two US Senate seat races.
The former film star Schwarzenegger, a Republican but known as socially liberal, revealed on his Twitter page after voting closed that he was among those who rejected the marijuana proposals.
US federal statistics show nearly 7 percent of the state’s 37-million strong population smoke cannabis at least once a month.
The proposal has also drawn international criticism.
Last month, Latin American leaders meeting in Colombia said the US could not at the same time “promote penalizing this kind of activity in other countries and authorize the legalization of drug production on their own territory.”
US authorities had warned a yes vote could greatly complicate their war on drugs.
However, proponents argued that legalizing marijuana could throw a spanner in a very lucrative market for Mexican drug traffickers, who are fighting a brutal drug war for control of trafficking routes into the US that has claimed over 28,000 lives in almost four years.
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