more debate on Prop 19...

"...end criminal prohibition for recreational cannabis use..."

Get real. Prop 19 doesn't do that.

If Prop 19 passes, a twenty year old grower who gets caught selling a a couple of ounces, or growing a few plants, will still become fodder for the court system. If anybody grows more than a five- by-five foot plant, then they'll be "breaking the law." Please, "ending prohibition" with Prop 19? Give me a break...compared to what is necessary and possible, Prop 19 is a misdirection.

First, Prop 19 acquiesces Constitutional protections over our god-given right to grow "every herb bearing seed." Don't even consider conceding your freedom to farm if you ever want to be free.

"Essential civilian demand" would achieve that, but our generation apparently lacks the balls necessary to even discuss what the true value of Cannabis really is. I've been trying for decades to objectively realistically revaluate Cannabis as both unique and essential, beyond rightful government jurisdiction, and gotten only verbal encouragement for the most direct strategy there is for ending prohibition.

Secondly, Prop 19 fails to make the most of our historic opportunity -- to recognize the true value of the world's most valuable agricultural resource. Prop 19 misses the larger, badly needed opportunity for an agricultural renaissance, by burdening it with an expensive, inefficient bureaucracy. The corporate government can only get its cut of the pot market through perpetuating the lies of prohibition -- that Cannabis is somehow "dangerous" and needs to be regulated by a protective paternalistic "bureaucrazy." That lie has been revealed as completely false, in fact the opposite of what is true.

Cannabis has finally been recognized all over the world as an agricultural and therapeutic wonder at the same time that petrol has finally been recognized as a deadly, unacceptable source of energy. Our governments have corrupted themselves to economic insolvency and now the same entities want to control Cannabis, resource they've refused to acknowledge !

The fundamental shift in values that's happening right now means that anything is possible.

Third, Prop 19 avoids the opportunity to recognize the enormity of what's happening nationally and globally. Wake up! The world's MOST useful and nutritious plant, a known "strategic resource" has been erroneously characterized by the corporate regime, that is recalcitrant in classifying Cannabis as a Schedule One drug -- in spite of rigorous science and international consensus to the contrary!

Follow that kind of "leadership" if you want, but I won't go along with the illusion. Are you content to concede rightful jurisdiction over "every seed bearing plant" without doing everything possible to revaluate Cannabis beyond government control of any sort? I'm not.

As long as we have the slimmest chance of reclaiming our freedom to farm, then we are obligated to go for it.

"...establish California as the most forward-thinking and liberalized area in the world for cannabis policy, Amsterdam, Vancouver, etc included."

Hah! -- not hardly. Cannabis grows openly everywhere in Holland, Canada and other regions where hemp is being farmed because Nature spreads the seeds all over the place.

That's a primary difference between a drug and an herb. Drugs don't make seeds, herbs do. That's significant to the discussion of "control."

"It's great that you love and appreciate cannabis"

I simply appreciate Cannabis for what it is truly worth. Cannabis is both unique and essential. Until the meaning of that sinks in, then people will continue to be misled, in a stupor of mis-vauation that persists after seventy-three years of "Reefer Madness."

"keep in mind the position you're supporting when you do so"

Among other names and concepts, it's been called "god-given" "The Constitution, "inalienable rights" "natural law" "self-evident" ...

It's so easy (and arrogant) to call something "meaningless" if you don't understand it. If you won't even try to understand the larger picture, then I can't help you.