It was certainly easier to get pot than beer when I was in high school...

Dan, I hope you saw the email I sent yesterday about the koala, lizard and alligator.

LOL. Doobie doobie doo.

Who the fuck is even opposing Prop 19?

Here's Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin making sense for a change:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0k4zTAe7T…

I'm all for legalization, but this ad assumes a) it's particularly hard for kids to get booze and b) legalization will magically make it tough for kids to find weed. Hel-looooo....

@3 God, Sarah Palin would be such an adorable, kooky aunt. Did you hear how she says "smoke a joint"?

Too bad people can't distinguish "batshit crazy" from "wise woman with a vision".

This is just how much I care.

Don't legalize it, then.

It's all kinds of weird here, with the Feds weighing in that they will continue to enforce anti drug laws even if this passes, and with the LA (County?) Sheriff saying he'll continue to enforce against pot even if it passes.

I mean, what the hell happened to due process, creating new legislation and fucking following it?

I particularly like the state vs Fed thing. Normally that would have tea party types up in arms. Except of course that this time they're siding with the Big Govt.

My head hurts.

It will not make it harder for kids to get it - I mean, people don't make beer in their back yards or basements, right? You have to buy it in a store. Pot is grown EVERYWHERE by SO MANY PEOPLE. Does anyone really think that once pot becomes legal only stores will sell it? This ad has nothing to do with anything - it's pointless.

The more illegal and verboten it is, the more middle school and high school kids want to do it.

Make it as old and stuffy as smoking a pipe.

@9

My housemate's brew equipment in the garage would beg to differ.

Although, I suppose that the garage is technically neither the back yard or basement...

There is a supply-and-demand argument for pot getting at least HARDER to get if it's legal (for kids, that is). Right now, pot is sold at a huge premium because it's illegal. It's not exactly expensive to produce, so if companies can grow it en masse, and make it even cheaper to produce, even taxing it will probably make it cheaper in stores. Adults will just buy their pot in a store, and the market for illicit weed will become less lucrative and shrink. It won't disappear, by any means. Kids pay people to get booze and tobacco for them all the time, and they'd probably still pay a backyard/basement grower a premium for weed. But it will get smaller (and even more expensive), and it will be at least a little harder for kids to get their hands on it.

But I'd much rather a kid get their hands on weed than booze or cigarettes. It's safer, less addictive (by that I mean not chemically addictive at all), and easier to get caught doing (pot smells something wicked, so it's not like you can just use some listerene and toss the beer cans, and there's little plausible explanation for coming home smelling like pot - unlike cigs where you can just say some random person around you was doing it and not have the physical markers that give you away).

I for one hope none of the hard liquor-swilling middle school kids peeing on my sidewalks after 1100/5 pass are also smoking weed and drop their wacky 'backy on my shrubs.

Still gonna call the cops on them, though. Arson is a serious crime.

Flawed logic. Kids don't sell beer to each other the way they do with pot, because you can't carry hundreds of dollars of beer (much less chilled beer) around with you in your backpack, not because it's illegal.

But I hope Mr. and Mrs. Average White Man buy the message, because pot should be legalized.

My own high school experience was that booze was readily available, but I personally never smoked pot or hung out with kids who did (not that many, or at least that I knew of). Of course, I attended high school way back in *cough* so it's likely different these days. Though they already had the "JUST SAY NO" campaigns (which we all derided) by then.

The Republicans started the "War on Drugs", who remembers the Nancy Reagan campaign, Just Say No in the mid-80's. It had nothing to with Morality, but had everything to do with fueling business, the business of Prisons. Which, funnily enough also in the mid-80's states were running out of money to build prisons so they became a privatized, for profit ventures. To make money you have to fill them with...hmmmm.....who is an easy target? Drug offenses. U.S. prisons are filled with people (mostly of color and ethnicity) on low level drug offenses. So much so that murderers and rapists, the real criminals, get reduced sentences because the cells are full of some guy that got 10yrs for a bag of weed. The United States is home to 5% of the world's population and yet it houses 23% or the worlds prisoners. It is simply incarceration for job creation, prison guard, police, parole officers, and on and on. Those are the people who are opposing Prop 19 who want to keep the wheels of Big Prison Business greased.

@9: Try again. Backyards and basements are exactly where people do homebrewing. Well, I do the actual brewing in the kitchen but I let it ferment in the basement. And I've seen plenty of photos from people who literally brew it in their backyards.

Actually, in high school we were raiding our parents' booze. *Lots* of kids' parents were damn heavy drinkers, when I look back at that. So, uh, they were sort of raiding backyards & basements for beer then ;-)

But hey, if the commercial convinces some voters to go for 19, I'm all for it.

@12:

You said exactly what I was going to say.

There will still be people over 21 who sell weed to underagers just like they currently do with tobacco and alcohol, but with the cost of weed predicted to drop significantly when it's legalized and underagers unwilling to pay huge premiums for things that have a known market value, the market for illegal dealing will dry up to a tiny fraction of its current level.

Combine that with stiff penalties for anyone who deals and having legal dispensaries that will raise eyebrows at anyone who frequently buys large amounts of weed (like a dealer would) AND will have the power to contact authorities, and you're going to see it much harder for young people to get marijuana.

I've already voted yes on 19, I really hope it passes.

who cares if teens smoke pot?

@15: A couple problems: kids DO sell beer/liquor to each other, just not hundreds of dollars worth, because as you point out it's legal (the same will be true for pot). Also, see #12. Ms. D is exactly correct: it won't get harder because people will magically stop circumventing substance-control laws, it will get harder because the major networks will no longer be profitable when (legal) weed suddenly costs only $40/oz instead of $200/oz (or whatever the street price for decent pot is out in Cali). You'll just have a few random people instead of a large black market economy.

Then there's HK's point (#23): why DOES anyone care if people, teens or adults, get high? I've actually never understood this; I've heard plenty of rationalizations, which I know are rationalizations because they have no connection to the actual facts concerning the issues they invoke, but no actual justifications. It seems like many people just take "Drugs are bad" as an unexamined tautology, like "Sex is bad".

Also, legal dealers won't want to sell to underage kids, because they're risking their licenses, unlike illegal dealers, who have nothing to lose selling to kids vs. adults. Also, by bringing the sale above ground, police KNOW where to monitor the sales, which helps combat the resale to minors (as with alcohol); obviously it's not perfect, but it's better than having to spend tons of time trying to even identify point-of-sale (not to mention that most dealers won't use a single static location). Again, it won't make it HARD, exactly, but it will make it HARDER, which should be important to you if you care about keeping teens from smoking pot for some reason.