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Prop. 19 Has Wide U.S. Support

from United Press International (DC), November 01, 2010

More Americans than not would welcome a vote by Californians to legalize marijuana, a poll released Monday says.

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United Press International (DC)

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http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2010/11/01/Calif-pot-measure-has-wide-US-support/UPI-19841288648805/

Final Field Poll Has Prop 19 Down

by Phillip Smith, October 31, 2010, 05:24pm

Proposition 19, the tax and regulate marijuana legalization initiative is trailing 42% to 49% in the last Field poll of the campaign season. A Field poll last month had the initiative winning by the same margin.

The Field poll results are in line with other recent polls. The Talking Points Memo Poll Tracker, which does not include the latest Field poll, has Prop 19 losing 49.6% to 43.4%. Only two polls out of 10 in the past month show the measure winning.

It appears support for Prop 19 peaked in September, before any serious opposition emerged. The measure polled ahead in all five polls that month.

But the election isn't over until everyone votes on Tuesday, and the Yes on 19 campaign is in full-blown get out the vote mode until the polls close. Rallies, newspaper and electronic media ads, and phone banking will continue up until the last minute.

Still, the Field poll suggests a victory on Tuesday may be hard to come by. Only slim majorities of Democrats (51%) and independents (57%) favor the initiative, while nearly two-thirds (65%) of Republicans oppose it. Prop 19 is only polling at 49% in the San Francisco Bay area and 50% in the rest of northern California, and is trailing in Los Angeles County (38%), the Central Valley (39%), and the rest of southern California (41%).

The measure was trailing among men, 44% to 48%, and by a larger margin among women, 40% to 50%. It trailed in all age groups except voters under age 40, who favored by a margin of 54% to 38%.

Prop 19 didn't have majority support among any ethnic group in the latest Field poll. It fared best with whites (46%), followed by blacks (45%) and Hispanics (35%). But it got creamed by Asian ethnic voters. Only 22% of Chinese-Americans supported, only 19% of Korean-Americans supported it, and only 10% of Vietnamese-Americans supported it.

Can a surge of "unlikely voters" prove the polls wrong? Stay tuned.

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Polls Have South Dakota Medical Marijuana Initiative Trailing Badly

by Phillip Smith, October 31, 2010, 03:43am, (Issue #656)

South Dakota Measure 13, the prairie state's highly restrictive medical marijuana initiative, was trailing badly in a Sioux Falls Argus-Leader/KELO-TV poll released Friday. Only 32% of likely voters polled said they supported the measure, while 62% said they opposed it.

The Argus-Leader/KELO-TV poll is the second in a week to show the measure trailing. A Nielsen Brothers poll released last Monday had it losing 53% to 33%.

If the polls are anywhere near accurate, it would be a devastating step backward for the state's medical marijuana movement. South Dakota already holds the dubious distinction of being the only state where voters rejected medical marijuana, but in 2006, it lost narrowly with 48% of the vote.

While the Nielsen Brothers poll provided no further breakdown of support and opposition, the Argus-Leader/KELO-TV poll did. Opposition to Measure 13 was strong with both men (61%) and women (63%), as well as among independents (57%) and Republicans (73%).

Only among Democrats were there high levels of support (46%), and even among that group, the initiative couldn't crack 50%.

In an analysis accompanying the poll results, the Argus-Leader said, "In the absence of definitive scientific evidence that marijuana has valuable medical properties, South Dakota voters seem swayed by the arguments opponents of ballot Initiative 13 make." It cited arguments from law enforcement and from the head of the South Dakota Medical Association as resonating well with voters.

Emmit Reistroffer, who heads the South Dakotan Coalition for Compassion, told the Argus-Leader he was surprised by the poll results. He said in his travels across the state, the greatest concern raised was that a retail network for marijuana sales might emerge. The initiative does not contain provisions allowing for dispensaries.

"South Dakota wants a conservative approach" to medical marijuana use, he said. "We want to teach voters how restrictive our measure is. Once they come to an understanding of that, I see where we have gained a lot of support."

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Oregon Marijuana Dispensary Initiative Faces Uphill Battle [FEATURE]

by Phillip Smith, October 29, 2010, 06:04pm, (Issue #656)

Despite a lack of organized opposition, Oregon's medical marijuana dispensary initiative, Measure 74, faces an uphill battle as election day draws near. In a poll last week, it had only 40% support, almost unchanged from the 41% who supported it in an August poll.

Still, Measure 74 supporters are hoping that last minute campaign efforts, as well as an increase in "unlikely voters" will get the measure over the top. Yes on Measure 74, the main group pushing the initiative, commissioned a poll earlier this month of young, progressive voters inclined to sit out this year's election. It found that those voters were more than twice as likely to vote when told about the measure than when told about elections for state officer.

"The latest polls are using a likely voter model that is not favorable to us, so the poll numbers don't look so good," said campaign spokesman Anthony Johnson. "Forecasters are expecting a right-wing Tea Party wave, and what we are doing is calling voters under 40 who voted in 2008. If young voters come out like they did in 2008, we win in a landslide. It's all about turning out the vote."

The campaign was able to use Democratic Party phone banks in the get out the vote effort this week (the party endorsed the measure in October), but that's late in the game. In Oregon, voters vote by mail, not at a polling station, and the vote has been ongoing all month.

Since passage of the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act in 1998, the number of Oregonians with a medical marijuana recommendation has ballooned to more than 36,000. But without a dispensary system in operation, patients either have to grow their own or find someone they can designate as a caregiver to grow for them. There are currently over 19,000 people registered as caregivers.

Medical marijuana advocates attempted a dispensary initiative in 2004, but that effort was defeated. It got 42.8% of the vote.

Measure 74 would create a system of state-licensed nonprofit dispensaries and grow operations to supply them. It bars dispensaries within 1,000 feet of schools or residential neighborhoods. It sets annual fees for providers at $1,000 and for dispensaries at $2,000. Both growers and dispensaries would additionally pay a 10% sales tax on all medical marijuana transactions. Revenues from the dispensary and grow operations could boost state coffers from anywhere between $3 million and $20 million a year, according to a financial impact statement prepared by state officials.

While Measure 74 has reported only a few tens of thousands of dollars in donations this month, there is no organized opposition. Proponents are airing radio commercials in Portland and Eugene, and a legion of volunteers are putting up yard signs and doing get out the vote efforts across the state. There have been no opposition TV or radio ads.

"This has been a low-budget, grassroots campaign," said Johnson. "At the end, we got $25,000 to run radio ads by Tom Potter, the former police chief and mayor of Portland, and we're expecting another $50,000 to come. We also got $10,000 from Peter Lewis, and Drug Policy Alliance head Ethan Nadelmann rounded up another $15,000."

"The opposition is law enforcement, and that's about it," said Johnson. "We have 11 voter pamphlet arguments on our side, and there are only two opposing. One of them is a combined effort of sheriffs, police chiefs, and prosecutors. The other is from Oregonians Against Legalizing Marijuana, which is in cahoots with Calvina Faye's Save Our Society From Drugs."

Oregonians Against the Legalization of Marijuana executive director Shirley Morgan will not debate the issue or do interviews, according to Johnson, but Save Our Society From Drugs has a web page attacking Measure 74. It warns that passage of the initiative could lead to the same "pot shop chaos" as has occurred in California, Colorado, and Montana. The web site also worries that dispensaries could be robbed and that passage could lead to -- gasp! -- "heavy vehicle and foot traffic in retail areas."

One thing helping the campaign this year is near unanimity and unity within the state's often fractious marijuana and medical marijuana movements. Despite bickering and backbiting in the run-up to the campaign, almost all of the state's advocacy groups are now on the same page regarding Measure 74. The one exception is the Stormy Ray Cardholders Foundation, which has opposed this effort to create a dispensary system that would ease access issues for patients.

The hour is late for Measure 74. Given that Oregon is a mail-in voting state, most votes have probably already been cast. Whether a last minute push now can make the difference will be known in a matter of hours.

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US Nearing 50% Supporting Marijuana Legalization, Poll Finds

by Phillip Smith, October 28, 2010, 05:58pm, (Issue #656)

Though the fate of California's Prop 19 remains unknown at the time of this writing, majority support in the US for marijuana legalization appears to be just a few years away. An all-time high of 46% of Americans favor legalizing marijuana, according to a Gallup poll released Thursday. The number opposed to legalization dropped to an all-time low of 50%. Support increased from 44% last year, continuing an upward trend in the past decade.

time is on our side

Support for legalization was at 12% in a Gallup poll in 1969 and climbed to 28% in 1978, then stayed flat at about 25% throughout the 1980s and most of the 1990s. By 2001, support had climbed to 31%, by 2004 it was at 34%, by 2006 it was at 36%. Since then, support has grown by 10 points to 46%.

"If the trend of the past decade continues at a similar pace, majority support could be a reality within the next few years," Gallup noted in its discussion of the poll results.

Pot legalization scored majority support among liberals (79%), 18-to-29-year-olds (61%), Westerners (58%), Democrats (55%), independents (54%), men (51%) and moderates (51%). It did least well among Republicans (29%), conservatives (30%), and people over 65 (32%)

Support varied among regions, from the West's high of 58% to 47% in the East, 42% in the Midwest, and 41% in the South.

The poll also asked about support for medical marijuana and found that 70% of Americans supported it. But that figure is down from 75% in 2003 and 78% in 2005.

The poll was based on live cell phone and land line interviews conducted October 7-10 with a random sample of 1,025 adults. Each question was asked of a half-sample of approximately 500 respondents. The margin of sampling error was +/-5 percentage points.

Prop 19 Still Trailing in Polls, But with Hopeful Signs

by Phillip Smith, October 27, 2010, 10:04pm, (Issue #656)

Proposition 19, is trailing in more polls, adding to a run of disappointing poll results as election day draws near. According to the Talking Points Memo Polltracker, five separate polls in the past week have Prop 19 losing by an average of 50.3% to 42.6%. (A Yes on 19 internal poll not included in the Polltracker has the measure ahead 45% to 42%.)

VOTE

A SurveyUSA poll released last Wednesday had the measure trailing 44% to 46%, well with the poll's 4% margin of error. As SurveyUSA put it, "not yet enough breathing room for 'No' to be considered a clear favorite, but enough of a 'Yes' erosion for backers to be gravely concerned."

A CNN/Time poll released last Tuesday was worse. It had Prop 19 losing 53% to 45%, with a +/-3.5% margin of error, among likely voters. (The numbers were slightly better for registered voters, 51% to 47%). The measure trailed among both men (46%) and women (44%) and whites (42%) and non-whites (49%). Only among liberals (76%), voters under 50 (57%), Democrats (55%), and in the San Francisco Bay area (55%) was Prop 19 polling a majority.

[Update: A final Field poll released Sunday also showed the measure down.]

The CNN/Time poll measured responses from 1,328 registered voters and 888 likely voters. The poll was conducted by phone interview.

The SurveyUSA poll is worrisome because a series of SurveyUSA polls as recent as October 18 had Prop 19 winning, but it does hold some grounds for hope. It measured both likely and actual voters -- early voting has been going on for several weeks now -- and it also polled cell phone users. Among people who only had cell phones, Prop 19 led, 48% to 36%. It also led among people who rarely vote in midterm elections, but who said they'd be voting this time, by a margin of 53% to 39%. And it led among people who had not yet voted, 45% to 42%, while trailing among those had already voted, 43% to 54%.

Those poll findings suggest that the initiative could still emerge victorious if it can get the young and tech-savvy and the "unlikely voters" who may be motivated by the issue to actually get out and vote. Prop 19 and its allies have been whipping their get out the vote campaign hard, and this week's million dollar infusion courtesy of George Soros may still give it the oomph to get over the final hurdle on Tuesday.

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Prop 19 Down in Two New Polls

by Phillip Smith, October 26, 2010, 05:05pm, (Issue #655)

[Update: Two more polls showing Prop 19 trailing came out after this issue of the Chronicle went to bed. Read about them here. Then volunteer (you don't need to be in California, all you need is a phone), because it's complicated and there's only one poll that counts, the one on Election Day.]

Two polls released Tuesday show Proposition 19, the California tax and regulate marijuana legalization initiative, in trouble. This follows mostly (but not entirely) bad polling news late last week, including an LA Times poll finding the initiative's worst numbers yet. Whether Tuesday's million dollar gift to the campaign by financier George Soros can make a difference in the final days, or whether a postulated "Reverse Bradley Effect" is causing support for the initiative to be unreported in polls conducted by live interviewers, will be seen next Tuesday.

marijuana plants (wikimedia.org)

The latest poll from Public Policy Polling (PPP) shows declining support for Proposition 19, California's tax and regulate marijuana legalization initiative. That poll has the measure losing, with 48% opposed and only 45% in favor.

A PPP poll in July had Prop 19 winning 52% to 36% and a PPP poll in September had it leading 47% to 38%. Tuesday's poll continues the downward trend line.

A new Suffolk University poll also has Prop 19 losing, 55% to 40%. That poll showed majority support for the measure only among voters under 35, 58% of whom said they would vote for it. All other age groups opposed it. The poll also showed Prop 19 losing even in the San Francisco Bay area, with support there at only 44%.

The Suffolk University poll was a statewide poll of 600 likely voters conducted by live telephone interviews and has a 4% margin of error. Prop 19 has come out ahead in automated polls, leading some observers to suggest that respondents are less likely to respond honestly about supporting marijuana legalization in polls with live polltakers. The putative phenomenon has been dubbed the "Reverse Bradley Effect," after former LA Mayor Tom Bradley, who lost a statewide election despite leading in the polls. Observers suggested that people were reluctant to tell pollsters they were voting against a black candidate.

The Prop 19 campaign recently released its own internal poll, which showed the measure passing 56% to 41% when people were robo-polled and leading 48% to 45% when automated and live poll data were combined.

Stay tuned. There will be at least two more polls released before election day, one by PPP and one by the Field Poll. But the only poll that counts is the one voters head to last week.

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Prop 19 Down in LA Times Poll

by Phillip Smith, October 22, 2010, 04:02pm

Two California polls last week showed Proposition 19 trailing as election day draws near. A Los Angeles Times/USC poll released Friday also had the marijuana legalization initiative trailing by 39% to 51%, with 10% undecided.

Last Wednesday, a Public Policy Institute of California poll had the measure losing 49% to 44%. But that same day, a SurveyUSA poll had it winning 48% to 44%.

Prop 19 had led in most polls taken this year and maintained a 1.2% lead in the Talking Points Memo Polltracker, which has not yet included the LA Time/USC poll. Looking at just the polls conducted in October and including the polls mentioned in this article, Prop 19 trailed by an average of 47.5% to 46.3%. At press time that had shifted to 49.6% to 43.7%.

The conventional wisdom is that in initiative elections, the burden of persuading voters is on the initiative. The electorate must be convinced to move from the status quo. But despite a late infusion of cash this month, the Prop 19 campaign does not have the funds to try to sway voters through TV ad campaigns in this state with some of the most expensive media markets in the country. Yes on 19 and allied organizations are engaged in a substantial get out the vote campaign, though.

The LA Times/USC poll found the measure supported by Democrats and independents, but opposed by Republicans. Men were split on the issue, with women leaning against it. Both sides in the campaign have considered mothers to be a key demographic.

Prop 19 continues to have support among likely voters under 40, winning by 48% to 37%. Among voters over 65, only 28% support it, with 59% opposed. The LA Times/USC poll showed Latinos swinging against Prop 19 by a two-to-one margin -- a finding at odds with most other polls. It also showed white voters opposing the measure. In most other polls, white voters favored it by a small margin.

The LA Times/USC poll surveyed 441 likely voters by telephone, including both cell phones and land lines, between October 13 and 20. The margin of error for the sample is +/- 4.6%.

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PPIC Poll: Prop 19 Behind 49% to 44%

by Phillip Smith, October 21, 2010, 03:33am, (Issue #654)

Proposition 19, the initiative to legalize, regulate, and tax marijuana in California, has lost support and is now trailing, according to poll results released Wednesday by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC). The landline and cell phone poll of 2,002 adults surveyed between October 10 and 17 has Prop 19 losing, 49% to 44%, with 7% undecided.

The numbers for Prop 19 are down eights from PPIC's September poll, which had it winning with 52%. But they are almost the mirror image of SurveyUSA poll also released Wednesday that showed Prop 19 leading 48% to 44%.

In the new PPIC poll, the initiative lost significant support among independents (from 65% to 40%) and Latinos (63% to 42%), and among almost all demographic groups. Whites are now more likely to oppose the support Prop 19 by a thin margin, a reversal from last month.

This poll is the fifth of 15 polls taken this year to show Prop 19 trailing. Ten others had it ahead, but only four of them had it at 50% or over, and the last one to do so was last month's PPIC poll. According to the Talking Points Memo Polltracker, the average of all polls has Prop 19 leading 46.8% to 44.5%. As of publication time, it had not been updated with Wednesday's two polls, but in terms of the poll averages, they would be a wash.

This is going to get very tense for the next 12 days.

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Arizona Medical Marijuana Initiative Poised for Victory [FEATURE]

by Phillip Smith, October 20, 2010, 11:38pm, (Issue #654)

Less than two weeks out from election day, the Arizona medical marijuana initiative, Proposition 203, appears poised for victory. If it wins, Arizona will become the 15^th medical marijuana state. Or maybe the 16^th -- polls close an hour earlier in South Dakota, which also has a medical marijuana initiative on the ballot.

Lily Rose, cancer survivor and Prop 203 spokesperson

"It's going real well," said Andrew Myers, spokesman for the Arizona Medical Marijuana Policy Project (AMMPP). "Prop 203 is the most popular of any of the initiatives or the candidates, including John McCain."

A Rocky Mountain poll released last week had Prop 203 passing with 54% among registered voters and 52% among likely voters. By comparison, Sen. John McCain in a runaway race has support at 49%, according to the poll.

The poll showed strong support among voters under 55 and a near even split among older voters, with 41% supporting and 43% opposed. Two-thirds of Democrats support the measure, as do 57% of independents. Republicans are divided, with 48% opposing, but 40% supporting.

"We expect that Arizonans will support Prop 203 the same way we supported medical marijuana before," Myers said, noting that voters had passed medical marijuana initiatives in 1996 and 1998. "Those votes demonstrated a high level of support, and we came back and drafted a complete piece of legislation. We were able to learn a lot of lessons about how these programs operated in other states, and apply those lessons in our initiative."

Under the initiative, patients suffering from a specified list of diseases or conditions (cancer, glaucoma, HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis C, multiple sclerosis, Chrohn's disease, Alzheimers, wasting syndrome, severe and chronic pain, severe nausea, seizures, severe muscle spasms) or "any other conditions or its treatment added by the Department [of Health]" could use marijuana upon a doctor's recommendation. Patients or designated caregivers could possess up to 2 1/2 ounces of usable marijuana.

The initiative envisions a system of state-registered, nonprofit dispensaries that could grow, process, sell, and transport medical marijuana and be remunerated for costs incurred in the process. In most cases, patients or their caregivers would not be allowed to grow their own medicine. Instead, unless they live more than 25 miles from the nearest dispensary, they would have to purchase their medicine at a dispensary. Patients and their caregivers outside that range would be allowed to grow up to 12 plants.

Arizonans have also twice voted to approve medical marijuana, in 1996 and again in 1998. In 1996, the initiative passed, only to be rejected by the state legislature, which placed it on the ballot two years later in order to give voters a chance to rectify their mistake. But the voters again approved medical marijuana, only to find out later that the measure was unworkable because the initiative mandated that physicians prescribe -- not recommend -- medical marijuana. That meant that doctors who wanted their patients to use marijuana would run up against the DEA, which controls doctors' ability to prescribe controlled substances.

In 2002, voters rejected a decriminalization initiative that had, as Myers put it, "a wacky medical component." Under that measure, the state Department of Public Safety would have had to distribute seized marijuana for free to medical marijuana patients.

Organized opposition has been late and limited. All of the state's sheriffs and district attorneys signed on to a letter opposing Prop 203 earlier this month. Medical marijuana in other states has led to "disastrous results," the letter claimed. "Marijuana floods the state that legalizes it and becomes readily available through grow-houses and independent distributors... Prop 203 would endanger the good people of Arizona by increasing the amount of illegal drugs in our State. We believe Prop 203 will lead to increased crime and vehicle accidents and will drain the resources of law enforcement agencies."

The letter warns that passage of the measure would mean "kids (any age)" could use medical marijuana with their parents' permission, but fails to mention either that a doctor's recommendation would be required or that other medications are available to children when needed.

It also warns that "you can pilot an airplane, navigate a watercraft and drive an automobile and cannot be charged with DUI if you only have marijuana metabolites in your system and you are a medical marijuana cardholder" -- failing to mention that the presence of metabolites, which can remain in the system form weeks, is not an indicator of impairment.

More serious opposition is centered on Keep AZ Drug Free/No on Prop 213, which has been the recipient of $10,000 donations from both former Phoenix Suns owner Jerry Colangelo and the Arizona Cardinals NFL team. This group has been active in getting op-eds published, doing call-ins to radio talk shows, and participating in public forums, but still doesn't seem to be gaining much traction.

"For a long time, we didn't hear a peep out of the opposition, but lately it's been getting intense and they've been getting increasingly strident," said Myers. "It's funny because their arguments have been very inaccurate, especially at the beginning of the campaign. I don't think they actually read the initiative before they came out against it."

The campaign is running on limited resources. The Marijuana Policy Project put $500,000 into the signature gathering phase of the campaign, but hasn't funded the actual election campaign. That means AMMPP is having to rely largely on local donations, and while the campaign isn't broke, like the opposition, it isn't exactly rolling in money, either.

"We're talking to as many voters as we can, we have TV ads up and running, but what we can do will depend on funding in these final days," said Myers. "We have an extensive cable TV buy in Phoenix and Tucson, but we haven't made our final spending decisions yet."

1996, 1998, 2002, 2010. It looks like the fourth time may be the charm for medical marijuana in Arizona.

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Public Opinion

Prop. 19 Has Wide U.S. Support

Final Field Poll Has Prop 19 Down

Polls Have South Dakota Medical Marijuana Initiative Trailing Badly

Oregon Marijuana Dispensary Initiative Faces Uphill Battle [FEATURE]

US Nearing 50% Supporting Marijuana Legalization, Poll Finds

Prop 19 Still Trailing in Polls, But with Hopeful Signs

Prop 19 Down in Two New Polls

Prop 19 Down in LA Times Poll

PPIC Poll: Prop 19 Behind 49% to 44%

Arizona Medical Marijuana Initiative Poised for Victory [FEATURE]

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