Andy Coghlan, reporter
The most audacious attempt yet to legalise cannabis in the US and the western world failed yesterday in the US Mid-term elections, when - despite support from Snoop Dogg and other celebrities - Californians voted "no" by approximately 8 percentage points.
As we reported last week in our preview of the vote, Proposition 19 would have made it legal for citizens older than 21 to possess and share up to 30 grams of marijuana, and to grow plots of the plant of up to 2 square metres.
Latest results available this morning suggested that around 54 per cent of Californians had voted against the proposition. Early reports in the US media suggest that there was a generational split in voting, with the young supporting the proposition and older voters rejecting it.
Threats from the US Attorney General Eric Holder to "vigourously enforce" federal anti-cannabis laws may have frightened some voters into rejecting the proposition, says the San Francisco Chronicle. As may fears of increased numbers of road accidents caused by intoxicated drivers, and the possibility of an increase in cases of schizophrenia among young users, especially if they smoke abnormally strong strains.
In an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, Richard Lee, founder of the Oaksterdam cannabis university in Oakland, and the architect of Proposition 19, said leaders of the campaign to legalise pot remain upbeat, and see the proposition itself as a possible turning point in the campaign:
The fact that millions of Californians voted to legalize marijuana is a tremendous victory. Proposition 19 has changed the terms of the debate, and that was a major strategic goal.Internationally, pressure has been mounting to ease a global ban on cannabis, enforced since 1961 by a treaty that forbids legalisation, not least because of the mounting human toll of the "war on drugs" waged in countries like Mexico.
Ну, то есть, конечно, будет. Но не по закону.
