Talk about a sentiment shift. In 1972, when Prop. 19 first made the ballot, Californians voted it down in blazing defeat. But it's been 14 years since voters passed Prop. 215, the Compassionate Use Act, which allows access to medicinal marijuana for chronically ill patients. Californians have had a long time to live with legal marijuana.
With hundreds of dispensaries and growers' co-ops sprouting all over the state, the cannabis industry has generated $100 million this year alone. And that's not including cities like Oakland, which collects its own sales taxes and fees.
With that kind of revenue, nobody should be declaring a war on marijuana, they should be making peace with it. It sure looks that way, because authorities have started to take a commonsense approach.
Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams recently said he wouldn't make anybody do time who was caught possessing small amounts of pot. He'll make them do community service instead of filling our jails - and stressing taxpayers - with nuisance cases.
And, in one of his last acts as governor, Jon Corzine signed a bill to make New Jersey the 14th state to allow medical marijuana. It takes effect sometime in 2011 - if Gov. Christie doesn't come up with another way to delay it.
Cannabis U
Smack in the middle of downtown Oakland sits Oaksterdam University, the nation's first cannabis college, which trains and educates students for the marijuana industry.
Richard Lee founded Oaksterdam in 2007. Confined to a wheelchair after a fall broke his spine in 1990, Lee, 47, says marijuana is the only drug that gives him relief from excruciatingly painful back spasms. He became a cannabis activist, and has sunk more than $1 million into Prop. 19.
