Marijuana reform initiatives on the ballot in 2016 - Official results thread

[Suzanimal]

If Prop. 205 passes, Maricopa County Attorney's Office funds from marijuana diversion program would dry up

The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office stands to lose millions in drug-diversion program revenue over the next few years should recreational marijuana become legal through Proposition 205.

The funds constitute a small percentage of the county attorney's nearly $100 million annual budget. But over the past 10 years, the office has collected nearly $15 million by referring clients to TASC, a private drug-treatment contractor hired to rehabilitate marijuana and other drug offenders.

If the ballot measure passes, certain marijuana prosecutions would become history, cutting into a drug-diversion program for marijuana offenders that has served almost 15,000 defendants over the past six years.

Defendants facing drug charges must pay the program’s fees, and in exchange they sidestep felony convictions if they successfully complete the program. TASC, in turn, reimburses the County Attorney’s Office up to $650 per marijuana client.

...

Montgomery frequently mentions the drug-intervention program in his anti-Prop. 205 messaging. He holds it up as a fair alternative to a felony conviction for lower-level offenders.

...

First- and second-time drug offenders are eligible for TASC. After an arrest, prosecutors in the County Attorney’s Office can refer a defendant for the diversion program and essentially put a hold on filing charges. If the program is completed, the case is either dropped with no charges filed or the pending charges are dismissed.

The defendant facing marijuana charges is responsible for paying the program fees, which can amount to more than $1,000, according to information obtained by The Republic from TASC. Of this, $150 is marked for intake, another $150 is for program costs, and $650 is then returned to the County Attorney’s Office. Defendants can pay lower fees, based on their income.

Random drug tests required by the program cost $14 apiece, and defendants could be responsible for a $50 fee to the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office for fingerprints and photographs.

Marrya Briggs, TASC chief operating officer, said there are no readily available reports that show how much reimbursement comes from marijuana clients, but she provided figures that confirmed more than three-quarters of TASC's clients since 2011 were referred because of marijuana charges.

Over the past six years, 77 percent of TASC's clients entered the program for marijuana charges, or 14,891 of 19,444 total clients since 2011, according to TASC.

County Attorney's Office records, provided to the newspaper this month under the state's public-records law, show the office received an average of $1.6 million annually from TASC reimbursements from 2010 to 2016.

The office receives $1,200 per defendant arrested on dangerous-drug charges and $1,500 per defendant placed in the TASC program for narcotics, according to a county attorney's spokeswoman.

...

http://www.azcentral.com/story/news...y-attorney-bill-montgomery-millions/92795924/

 

[tod evans]

The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office stands to lose millions in drug-diversion program revenue

Revenue my ass!

Tax dollar allocation is what they're speaking about, the tax payers will save millions if this bill passes..

Paint an honest picture you bastards.

 

[Danke]

Revenue my ass!

Tax dollar allocation is what they're speaking about, the tax payers will save millions if this bill passes..

Paint an honest picture you bastards.

I'm sure they look at it as OPM. Maybe Federal funds?

 

[osan]

The fact that these ballot measures exists shows how unfree we are, having to ask permission of BigBro as if we were idiot children incapable of making decisions for ourselves.

It is disgusting.

 

[Xenliad]

This measure leaves much to be desired, but I did my part.

http://imgur.com/a/C75m0

 

[parocks]

The Yes On 1 Campaign in Maine is led by David Boyer, Ron Paul staffer in Maine in 2012. I haven't seen recent polls, but I'd assume a win.

 

[jct74]

60 Minutes will be airing a segment on the ballot initiatives coming up in a few hours. Looks like a hit piece to me.

 

[Suzanimal]

60 Minutes will be airing a segment on the ballot initiatives coming up in a few hours. Looks like a hit piece to me.

"They're in disbelief that it's harmful. They say, How can it be harmful? It's a legal drug"

 

[jct74]

Catholic church spending big to defeat marijuana legalization in Massachusetts

Archdiocese gives $850,000 to fight marijuana bid

By Jim O’Sullivan
OCTOBER 28, 2016

The Boston Archdiocese is pouring $850,000 into a last-minute effort to defeat a state ballot measure to legalize marijuana, calling increased drug use a threat to the Catholic Church’s health and social-service programs.

The church’s contribution represents about a 50 percent increase over what the antimarijuana Campaign for a Safe and Healthy Massachusetts has collected so far. The total, however, is still less than half of what has been raised by the referendum’s proponents.

The church’s donation will likely help fund an existing advertising campaign. Archdiocesan officials have also sent materials to parishes and schools arguing against the ballot question.

“It reflects the fact that the archdiocese holds the matter among its highest priorities,” archdiocese spokesman Terrence Donilon said of the donation. “It’s a recognition that, if passed, the law would have significantly detrimental impacts on our parishes, our ministries.”

...

read more:
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2...egalization/qtCwVY4ViWjRFwOvcyveeK/story.html

 

[Danke]

Catholic church spending big to defeat marijuana legalization in Massachusetts




read more:
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2...egalization/qtCwVY4ViWjRFwOvcyveeK/story.html

They are as bad as government, looking for state hand outs. Not really interested in treatment for the few that have a problem with marijuana.

 

[Suzanimal]

Catholic church spending big to defeat marijuana legalization in Massachusetts

“It reflects the fact that the archdiocese holds the matter among its highest priorities,” archdiocese spokesman Terrence Donilon said of the donation. “It’s a recognition that, if passed, the law would have significantly detrimental impacts on our parishes, our ministries.”

read more:
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2...egalization/qtCwVY4ViWjRFwOvcyveeK/story.html

Really? That kind of money could really help some poor people. This kind of shit pisses me off.

 

[jct74]

Another fucking casino person trying to shut down legal marijuana. I don't know what it is about weed that they think is such a threat to their business model. But probably Wynn just made the donation so his casino could get built.

Money to gov’s no-to-pot group came just ahead of casino vote
Wynn ups the 'anti'

Joe Battenfeld
October 29, 2016

Casino mogul Steve Wynn handed out $100,000 to Gov. Charlie Baker’s anti-pot legalization campaign one day before the state Gaming Commission gave the green light to Wynn’s planned Everett casino development, records show.

Wynn Resorts’ large donation was received by the Campaign for a Safe and Healthy Massachusetts on Tuesday, just 24 hours before the massive casino complex got final approval, clearing the way for construction to begin soon.

Baker, along with Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh and House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo, formed the committee to defeat Question 4 — which would legalize the recreational use of marijuana for adults 21 and over — and has made it a major political priority.

The governor partly controls the Gaming Commission, which voted unanimously on Wednesday to approve the controversial casino development. Baker also stepped into the casino fight earlier this year to resolve a dispute between Wynn and state environmental regulators.

Wynn’s $100,000 contribution is his first to Baker’s anti-pot campaign, which has drawn support from numerous business leaders and development companies regulated by the state, as well as dozens of Bay State elected officials.

A spokesman for the campaign to legalize marijuana said the Wynn donation to Baker’s ballot question committee raises questions about whether he and other developers might be trying to “curry favor” with the administration.

...

read more:
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/co...y_to_gov_s_no_to_pot_group_came_just_ahead_of

 

[jct74]

Here's that 60 minutes propaganda piece if anyone's interested, brought to you by "Dr. Jon LaPook".

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/60-minutes-five-states-to-vote-on-recreational-pot/

 

[dannno]

Another fucking casino person trying to shut down legal marijuana. I don't know what it is about marijuana that they think is such a threat to their business model. But probably Wynn just made the donation so his casino could get built.

People take more risks on alcohol and they make worse decisions. People on cannabis tend to be more cautious.

 

[dannno]

Here's that 60 minutes propaganda piece if anyone's interested, brought to you by "Dr. Jon LaPook".

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/60-minutes-five-states-to-vote-on-recreational-pot/

I like what the officer said at the end about how he has been trying to encourage regional practices to start making sure they check drivers who have been in accidents for THC because it totally discredits the statistics that they have been touting in Washing about how the % of accidents with THC in their system have gone up - that is because they likely had the same issue and had to start encouraging them to check for it and so of course when they started to check more for it in more places the percentages went up.

In Colorado, we actually saw that fatal accidents fell sharply after legalization. This is a better statistic to look at, imo, since it is more easily measured.

 

[Suzanimal]

Government Regulators Drive Legal Marijuana Underground

Ryan McMaken

Following voter referenda in which the voters opted to legalize recreational use of marijuana, four states — Colorado, Washington, Oregon, and Alaska — legalized to varying degrees. Colorado and Washington were the first, back in 2012, but in all cases, federal regulators have done their best to hobble the newly legalized industry and to keep businesses in a legal gray area.

Specifically, it has been the banking industry — which is regulated at the federal level — which has done nothing at all to attempt to cooperate with private firms in jurisdictions where the voters have parted ways with federal prohibiting marijuana use.

Colorado in particular passed legislation allowing for the creation of "marijuana banks" that were designed to create new financial institutions that could be allowed to functions under federal banking regulations. The governor of Colorado passed that legislation into law in 2014, but the Federal Reserve system — one of the federal government's agencies that regulates the financial sector — refused to allow these institutions to exist.

The Fed, which vehemently opposed any meaningful oversight for itself, nevertheless is happy to assist the federal government in shutting down peaceful, legal businesses.

Federal prohibitions on banking for cannabis-related businesses has meant that dispensaries and related businesses — even businesses that never touch physical marijuana, such as advertising agencies — must deal in large sacks of physical cash. This, not surprisingly, has led to more criminal activity in which violent thieves more often ambush employees of cannabis-related businesses, hoping they'll score a large cash payout. The problem could easily be solved, of course, by allowing these business to put cash deposits in banks.

The result, not surprisingly, has been that businesses have moved underground to use so-called gray markets in a gray economy. This involves numerous workarounds, but federal regulators spend immense amounts of time trying to spy on these businesses and come up with new ways to stymie their efforts to engage in a legal business.

In a lengthy article on Monday, Bloomberg recently recounted the efforts of these legal businesses in detail and their efforts to conduct business while still paying taxes and staying in line with state-level regulations. Bloomberg even recounted how the DEA threatens businesses over which the DEA has no actual jurisdiction:

“This strikes me as ludicrous,” Wykowski said. As a prosecutor, “all of our focus was to get the underground economy above ground. The way you do that is to take the cash, because when it is deposited, you can follow its paper trail,” he said. “It is self-defeating for the government not to encourage people to use bank accounts and accept their cash.”

People in the business have been forced to be “more clever with banking, so a lot have indirect banking so they can pay with checks or wire transfers,” the lawyer said. He doesn’t want to give an exact definition of “indirect banking,” however, since “the Drug Enforcement Agency tries to foil any workarounds we come up with.”

For a while, Wykowski said, one strategy was to hire an armored car service that would deposit the client’s cash in its own general account, then wire it to the client’s banks, and that the DEA found out and wrote a letter to the armored car company saying it would pull its license if it didn’t stop. The DEA said in a statement they didn’t send such a letter but did have “some telephonic discussions with multiple armored car companies.” These discussions, the DEA said, were to advise the companies “of things we were observing in the ‘state legalized’ marijuana business.” The DEA does not have direct jurisdiction over licensing decisions made by state authorities. (The armored car company didn’t return requests for comment.)

...

https://mises.org/blog/government-regulators-drive-legal-marijuana-underground

 

[tommyrp12]

Ok, so now the regulatory/ administrative state is being touted as the solution for a already thoroughly authoritarian republican form of a state. The regulatory/ administrative agency in charge can wipe out any remaining freedom for personal growers and smokers at a whim. There is no good solution for people here.

A. Vote for it and hope the regulators have mercy on the personal smokers and growers.
B. Vote no and have the status quo and wait for a better bill without regulation.
C. Do what you want regardless.

I'm going back to supporting C. Although I would have liked to have pissed off various tyrants in the state.

http://www.necn.com/news/politics/WEB-The-Take1-103116_NECN-399396561.html
6:30 - 6:47

The phrase to look for is "complete control to the regulators".

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showth...nal-Government&highlight=administrative+state

I'm not sure if my cynicism about government and it's regulatory counterpart is clouding my judgment and this might be good over all, or if i'm guessing right and this is going to go south real quick due to regulatory capture and authoritarianism.

 

[jct74]

The regulatory/ administrative agency in charge can wipe out any remaining freedom for personal growers and smokers at a whim.

What freedoms to they have now though? The legislators can mess with any part of the bill they do not like anyways, because it is not a constitutional amendment. But they're probably not going to screw with it too much, because then there would be a huge public outcry for going against the will of the people. My advice is vote for it. It will be a huge strategic win for the nationwide movement, with no eastern state having legalized yet and Massachusetts being close to the massive population center of New York City. Probably would kick off a domino effect of other eastern states legalizing too, which legislators in Vermont and New Jersey have recently looked at. If it loses though the prohibitionists will have a field day and the pressure on other eastern states to legalize will be much lessened.

 

[jct74]

Colorado Lawmakers Want Arizona’s Anti-Marijuana Campaign To Stop Misleading People About Their State
As Arizona voters prepare to vote on legalization, an anti-drug group paints a bleak picture of life in a neighboring state.

Matt Ferner
10/31/2016

Lawmakers in Colorado on Monday asked an anti-marijuana campaign in Arizona to stop airing ads that they say contain false information about their state and could mislead voters who will be deciding on recreational legalization of the drug next week.

State Sen. Pat Steadman (D) and Democratic state Reps. Millie Hamner and Johnathan Singer wrote an email to Arizonans for Responsible Drug Policy leaders to call out ads the group has run. They say the TV spots contain “inaccurate and misleading statements” about the use of legal marijuana tax revenue in Colorado as well as rates of teen drug use.

“As members of the Colorado Legislature who played a central role in the budgeting and appropriation of marijuana tax revenues, we feel it is our duty to set the record straight so that voters in both [Arizona and Colorado] have accurate information about this subject,” the letter reads.

In an ad titled “Empty Promises,” two former Colorado school officials suggest that millions of dollars in tax revenue that were supposed to go to schools instead funded the regulation of the legal marijuana industry. Former Denver Mayor Wellington Webb makes a similar claim in an ad titled “Mistake.”

“We can say with certainty that the claims about Colorado marijuana tax revenues featured in your committee’s ads range from highly misleading to wholly inaccurate,” the lawmakers write, citing multiple official state documents that illustrate their point.

...

read more:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry...campaign-colorado_us_58179a85e4b0390e69d1e031



Two new ads running in Arizona to counter the misinformation:

 

[Danke]

"Focus on more serious crimes?"

So the ad is saying Marijuana usage is a crime...