I am a prop215 patient (I actually do have a very real medical condition), so I can already grow legally.
I just see how much harm this bill can do, as opposed to good. I see a lot of people loosing jobs because of it, I see how it is very wishy-washy with wording. I don't like the fact that its being "Taxed, regulated, & CONTROLLED".
I don't really think that the "idea" is to vote in ANY law that concerns cannabis, JUST BECAUSE it involves cannabis. There is a much better bill that could have a shot in 2 years, I can wait for that. I've done my time in jail and know that it sucks to have to wait 2 more years, but hey, you knew from the start that what you were doing was illegal, and that the consquenses for those actions were highly real. I'm not saying that I support locking up and jailing people for doing nothing more than growing a plant, but what I am saying that you knew what you were doing had very real consquences if you were busted. Thats the point of being a political prisoner, unfortunatly, you have to serve time in jail.
I want the plant to be FREE, not "REGULATED AND CONTROLLED". That would REALLY cut out the black market, if thats what the government and the people behind this bill really want to see. If every single person was FREELY allowed to grow and do what they wanted with this plant without capital involved (and "concidently" there is a bill trying to get this to happen in 2012..) This bill is just taking the money away from the "illegal" black market mafia, and putting it into the hands of the "legal" free market Mafia. Sorry, but I am more concerned about what our government can and will do to this plant, than any mom & pop grower. Because the decisions that the government makes effect me (and everyone else) directly, not the profits that growers are getting. I may be idealistic, but I am realistic enough to know that a bill is trying to go on the ballots in 2012 that is 100 times better than prop19. One that will ACTUALLY free the plant (like Jack Herer has supported), not some band aid like this bill is offering that will make the extremely rich richer and the people just getting by poorer. I don't think that the pro-19 crowd really wants to see this plant free, but controlled and regulated, obviously, because that is the bill title that they are voting for. I am not a capitalist, I am an anarchist, sorry.
And if you don't think that by 2012 we will have the numbers to get that bill passed, then you obviously know nothing of human evolution and the "Doubling of Knowledge" as its known in Quantum Mechanics. The world is getting SMARTER as time goes on. Think of how much more freedom we have now as opposed to just 15 years ago, let alone thousands of years ago. Think of all the information that we are being saturated with daily (the internet being an amazing example, anyone can find out anything without any gatekeepers to that information, within a click of a button). And as time goes on we are learning more and more and knowledge keeps getting vaster and vaster. Think of how far we've come just since the 1960's with EVERYTHING (homosexual rights, black rights, womens rights, abortion rights, cannabis rights, drug rights). We are COLLECTIVELY (as a planet) getting SMARTER, not dumber, and we are moving in a direction towards more and more freedom and information. Hell, they have even been approving scientific research into psychedelics. But then again, I am an optimist, sorry that I can't be more pessimistic about the future like most people.
