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FROM THE MAGAZINE

Framing The Issue
With legalization on the ballot, the question is how proponents should shape their message.

BY THEO DOUGLAS

An historic event took place March 24th in California, when the Secretary of State’s office decided, shortly before 6 p.m., that the initiative to legalize cannabis was indeed qualified to be on the November ballot. But history will not stop there.

The actual vote is now just six months–and one more election–away, and even Oaksterdam University founder Rich Lee of Oakland, the man who spearheaded the effort to bring this to voters, is not sure how the contest will end.

“Yeah, I think the polling shows that people are not easily swayed on this issue,” Lee said in a recent telephone conversation from Oakland.

“The polling shows we have a slim majority, and there’s only about 40 percent against it and 10 percent undecided. As long as we get a slim percent of the undecideds, we should win.”

Fortunately, Lee is probably too experienced to be overconfident, for experienced political observers–even proponents of the initiative, which is still too new to have a ballot number–say its supporters face an uphill battle against wealthy, well-entrenched opposition forces this fall.

“I think they’re doing fine now. I think it’s going to be very tough. We’ve got an election in June to go through, and then we’ve got $150 to $200 million of Meg Whitman’s Goldman Sachs money before you even see the light of day on any other issue,” said Rick Jacobs, founder of the Courage Campaign, a Los Angeles-based progressive organizing network which has garnered more than 300,000 signatures to a petition demanding the repeal of Proposition 8, and recently produced a radio ad aimed at holding Whitman accountable.

“I think our point of view is, it’s our job to pass this because it’s good public policy,” Jacobs continued, noting that Courage Campaign believes legalization–and taxation–could help pull the state out of its financial straits. “And if it’s legal, you’re no longer going to have people with a couple whiffs of marijuana in the background going to jail for the rest of their lives. Those are two very specifi c reasons that we favor this.” Courage Campaign members are not alone.

“I think it should have been legal all along and never made into a scheduled drug in the 1980s.

We need to regulate and tax and get on with our lives,” said Los Angeles City Councilman Bill Rosendahl, adding proudly that he cast the lone dissenting vote against Los Angeles’ new medical cannabis ordinance, and is an avowed Prop. 8 opponent himself.

Is there a link between the battle over Prop. 8, and the fi ght yet to be waged over November’s cannabis initiative? Perhaps – if only a philosophical one, borne out of the fact that both are progressive, liberal causes which some commonality of support.

“I think Prop. 8 was a perfect example of the forces that exist out there,” Rosendahl said. “First of all you’ve got alcohol, tobacco, and criminal justice people – they’re vehemently against [legalization] and they’re going to do whatever it takes. They’re going to have specially-funded strategies out there to kill it. It gives a cop a job.

“Once positive [campaigning] goes out there you will see a negative campaign by the people who stand to lose if it passes–people involved in the criminal justice system, drug companies, alcohol companies,” Rosendahl continued.

“They’re going to go balls to the wall. I would defi nitely run scared, run defensively, run as if you’re losing.”

“I don’t know if there is [a Prop. 8 comparison],” said longtime political analyst David Fleischer, who heads the LGBT Mentoring Project. “There are a lot of lessons from Prop. 8 that can help us being a lot smarter when we’re going back to the ballot on same-sex marriage.”

Perhaps the most resounding lesson from Prop. 8’s passage in 2008–a blow that some felt was like defeat snatched from the jaws of victory– is to not take anything for granted, an attitude which everyone agrees applies to the legalization campaign as well.

“People should assume nothing,” said West Hollywood Mayor Pro Tem John Duran, a supporter of the initiative, and a member of a city council which passed a resolution making marijuana enforcement its lowest priority.

“Unless you’re over 60 percent [support], you may be in a comfortable position, but you’ve got a fi ght on your hands; and if you’re under 60 percent, you’ve defi nitely got a battle on your hands and people should not be in a complacent position.”

So, already facing stiff opposition, what are supporters of legalization to do?

“It’s easy to underestimate the support you need to pass a change. It’s easier to get people to vote to support the status quo,” Fleischer said. “Polling often overstates our support, and we tend to talk a lot to people who share our views. It’s worth doing as many different types of research as you can – not just polling – so you have a sense what universe of people support you.”

But don’t just screen your audience–do the same with your employees.

“You gotta hire good campaign people, not just people who know how to hit the rich for money. You’ve got to have people with proven track records of winning things,” Rosendahl said. “You can’t just have people who like pot or think [criminalization] is wrong. You’ve got to have the junkyard dog-type of campaign people.”

Their message, however, has to resonate across California.

“I think, primarily, we have to ask people to rely on their own experience. We’ve got people– parents, grandparents and children–who, if they haven’t tried it, they know someone who has,” said Duran, who has used cannabis himself, but is clean and sober now. “If we’re willing to have honest and frank discussions around the dining room table, then the arguments of the opposition will carry no weight, because they’re based on fear and fallacy.”

And the best time to speak up is now.

“Sooner the better, sooner the better, babe. I would start with soft commercials in the summer, if you’ve got enough money,” Rosendahl said. “It’s about time we dealt with it. We had Prohibition in the ’20s and look at what that got us.”