How to Debate Marijuana User Who is Anti-Prop 19

How to Debate Marijuana User Who is Anti-Prop 19

Opinion by NORML
(September 20, 2010) in Society / Drug Law

By "Radical" Russ Belville

You won't find the word "legalization" in Prop 19... but you will find "It is LAWFUL to possess and cultivate marijuana"

After viewing the Prop 19 “debate” at HempCon and battling many of these Stoners Against Legalization online, I’ve come up with some simple rhetorical tools for dealing with these terribly misguided individuals. Unfotunately, I feel like the YES campaign is making a mistake Democrats make in elections: depending on facts, logic, reason, and people voting for their own best interests.

This is an emotional issue and the NO side is doing a good job stoking fear, confusion, and anger.

They’re playing right out of Karl Rove’s handbook – demonize the opponent (“millionaire Richard Lee!”, “corporate megagrows in Oakland!”) and obfuscate the issues. Our side is fighting within the opponents frames of “Prop 19 vs. Prop 215″ and “corporate control of cannabis” instead of defining the issue as legalization and improvement over the Jim Crow aspects of Prop 215.

Here are my suggestions for attacking the anti-Prop 19 side, fighting their emotion with more powerful emotion, attacking their strengths and using it against them, and redefining the frames.

Begin any question you have for Anti-Legalizers with “I’m a healthy adult without a Prop 215 recommendation; can you tell me why…?” and then ask. For example:

-- “I’m a healthy adult without a Prop 215 recommendation; can you tell me why I should vote against being able to carry an ounce of marijuana on my person?”
-- “I’m a healthy adult without a Prop 215 recommendation; can you tell me why I should vote against being able to grow marijuana in my house?”
-- “I’m a healthy adult without a Prop 215 recommendation; can you tell me why I should vote to keep the risk of getting a criminal misdemeanor record for smoking pot?”

Almost all of their complaints come from the “Prop 19 destroys Prop 215″ myth they’ve been pushing. So hamstring that by pointing out you’re not a Prop 215 patient and neither are 80%-90% of California’s cannabis consumers.

Next, when the Stoner Against Legalization goes into the thicket of “Under Prop 215 this and that is legal and Prop 19 will make it illegal…” you simply respond with:

“Wow, those sound like powers that (LA District Attorney) Steve Cooley and (San Diego District Attorney) Bonnie Dumanis would love to have… so how come they’re asking people to vote NO?”

Hammer on the point that a NO vote on Prop 19 allies you with the cops, prison guards, drug dealers, drug traffickers, enemies of Prop 215 like Cooley, Trutanich, Dumanis, Brown, and Feinstein. ”If Prop 19 does everything you say to Prop 215, why doesn’t Steve Cooley support it?”

When a Stoner Against Legalization tells you about some terrible prediction of life after Prop 19, you can respond with “So that’s why we need to keep arresting and locking people up for marijuana, then?” Never let them off the hook on any of their points without forcing the audience to reconcile the point that a NO vote means “I am voting to keep myself a criminal.”

The Stoner Against Legalization may then try to steer the debate to the “But marijuana is virtually legal in California under Prop 215″ area. There are two quick replies to that notion. First:

“So why, exactly, have 77,000 Californians been arrested, tried, and convicted on marijuana charges in 2009 if marijuana is legal”

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