Timeout!

In a recent opinion published in Lake County News, Robert Schaerges wrote as if Proposition 19, which would decriminalize possession and cultivation of cannabis, had already passed and that Lake County will prosper by unionizing the industry.

Timeout!

California has not yet voted on the proposition and even if approved there is still a little thing called federal law.

Before anyone entertains such far-reaching, if not offbeat, ideas, there are many obstacles to overcome.

For one, there is the obvious conflict between state and federal law; the US Department of Justice openly opposes the proposition.

Second, even if cannabis was legal federally (try to imagine getting the U.S. Congress to vote for legalizing drug use) the proposition does not establish taxes on sales to fund enforcement and does not outline substance control; it seems obvious, at least to me, that these obstacles and probably a lot

more must be resolved before seriously considering second tier issues.

If passed by voters in November, Proposition 19 will make it lawful for any person 21 years of age or older to “personally possess … not more than one ounce of cannabis, solely for that individual’s personal consumption, and not for sale,” (about a full Ziploc sandwich bag). It would make legal “cultivation … in an area of not more than 25 square feet per private residence,” which is not nearly enough space to truly “industrialize” its production.

The Board of Equalization recently noted that Proposition 19 “…does not establish a statewide

regulatory framework, nor does it impose an additional statewide tax on cannabis.” Unlike alcohol beverages that are regulated statewide by the Department of Alcohol Beverage Control, Proposition 19 leaves it up to an unmanageable patchwork of 536 local jurisdictional entities to tax and regulate cannabis.

Federal law categorizes marijuana as a “Schedule 1” drug and prohibits the possession, usage, sale and/or cultivation. In a letter to former heads of the Drug Enforcement Administration, US Attorney General Eric Holder promised that the Justice Department will continue to enforce federal cannabis laws in California even if the state’s voters approve Proposition 19.

As a practical matter all that Proposition 19 does, in a very limited way, is decriminalize cannabis

in state law without all the bells and whistles required to make the new law work as intended.

Those pushing for unionizing the non-existent cannabis industry should take a timeout. We need much more serious-minded evaluation and discussion before we get any deeper in the weeds (no pun intended).

Carly Stockman was raised in Kelseyville, Calif., and currently lives in Sacramento and attends Lincoln Law School.