Momentum to legalize marijuana in California is growing

Inmer Avalos prerolls joints to sell at Green Cross. Inmer Avalos prerolls joints to sell at Green Cross. Photo: Leah Millis / The Chronicle Photo: Leah Millis / The Chronicle Image 1 of / 30 Caption Close Momentum to legalize marijuana in California is growing 1 / 30 Back to Gallery

After this month’s election, just one piece of the West Coast remained unwelcoming to recreational pot: California.

But with voters in Oregon and Alaska legalizing the use and sale of marijuana — joining Washington and Colorado in inviting retail spreads of cannabis-infused teas and brownies and joints — advocates see fresh momentum behind the slow shift in how the public regards the green stuff and those who enjoy it.

California residents rejected legalization in 2010, with a 54 percent vote against it, but supporters of recreational marijuana are growing more confident about reversing that result in the 2016 election.

“I see a parallel — not a perfect parallel, but a parallel — with marriage equality,” said Ben Tulchin, a San Francisco-based pollster who has watched sympathy for both same-sex unions and marijuana climb. “The first battle you may lose, like in California, but you start a conversation and get the dialogue going. … And you eventually see a very big shift.”

California, alongside Arizona and Nevada, have legalization measures in the works for the 2016 election, when the presidential race is expected to deliver younger voters to the polls who tend to be more supportive of pot. Proponents are considering other states as well.

“I got to believe that the wins this week, coupled with the wins in 2012, will provide momentum,” Tulchin said.

The increasing support for the drug is the result of a number of factors, say marijuana supporters, who for decades made little progress.

Electorate has changed

“The bottom line is that people are no longer fooled by the anti-marijuana propaganda,” said Chris Lindsey, legislative analyst for the Marijuana Policy Project, which filed paperwork this fall to raise money for California’s legalization measure.

Echoing what has been seen as a winning talking point for cannabis proponents in recent years, Lindsey said, “Voters are increasingly savvy to the fact that marijuana is far less harmful than alcohol and really should be treated that way.”

The electorate has fundamentally changed to include more Millennials who are tolerant of the drug, alongside Baby Boomers who grew up with it in the ’60s.

Another factor is that more than 20 states as well as the District of Colombia now permit marijuana to be prescribed for the sick, meaning many communities have grown accustomed to the drug.

Even without legalization, many law enforcement agencies have made busting pot users a low priority — as a trip to most any outdoor concert venue will prove. Critics have long said that most medical pot users obtain their “medicine” for recreational purposes.

“The sky didn’t fall. Usage rates and abuse didn’t change. All the doom-and-gloom scenarios that we were told would happen didn’t come to fruition, and people are seeing that,” Lindsey said.

Voters in Washington, D.C., who on Tuesday approved a measure allowing adults to grow and possess marijuana but didn’t lay out a framework for enabling retail sales, had another impetus for going forward: racial injustice.

More blacks arrested

A report by the American Civil Liberties Union said black people in San Francisco were 4.3 times more likely than white people to be arrested for pot possession in 2010 — even though black and white people use pot with similar frequency. In Washington, D.C., the number spikes to eight times.

“Here you have a city where the majority is black and the majority of them are poor, and they don’t use marijuana any more than the hipsters or yuppies who live in the northwest, yet they’re the ones more likely to be arrested,” said UC Santa Cruz sociology Professor Craig Reinarman, who has written about drug policy for 30 years.

Supporters of decriminalization note that because more than half of the nation’s drug arrests are for marijuana, a shift would cut prison costs and free up police to pursue other crimes.

Also Tuesday, voters in a handful of cities and counties, from Maine to New Mexico, passed measures similar to Washington, D.C.’s, reducing or eliminating penalties for marijuana possession. In California, Proposition 47 downgraded the possession of most drugs to a misdemeanor.

For Washington, D.C.’s, measure, one hurdle remains. It has to be approved by Congress, because U.S. lawmakers hold constitutional powers over the capital.

Whatever decision the legislature makes, the debate draws the federal government into an issue that it’s tried to stay clear of. Marijuana remains illegal under federal law, even for medical use.

If there is momentum for legalization, there is also a continuing deep concern about the shift from broad segments of the population.

Opponents argue that legalization will increase marijuana use among adults and children, and that the social costs, including addiction treatment, will run high.

Kevin Sabat, president of the anti-legalization group Smart Approaches to Marijuana, doesn’t think the momentum will carry. Advances made in the election last week, he said, came because marijuana supporters outspent their opponents.

“This wasn’t about voters being turned off. It was about voters hearing only the legalizers’ message because they were the only ones with real money,” Sabat said. “We’re certainly going to put our best effort forth to defeat the initiatives in 2016. We already won once in California, and I think we can win again.”

Backers in California acknowledge that victory won’t come easy. Although polls show a majority now supports the idea, selling voters on a specific plan gets tricky.

Concerns about how the drug will be taxed, and who can sell it, helped sink Proposition 19 four years ago. Even leaders in the medical marijuana community decided they didn’t like the details of the rollout and came out against the initiative. A lack of funding for the 2010 campaign was also an obstacle.

Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, a supporter of the 2016 push for legalization, is chairing a task force to study the issue in a bid to head off problems.

“A lot of things weren’t thought through with Proposition 19,” said Newsom, who will be termed out of his office in 2018 and doesn’t see support of pot as hindering his political future. “We want to make sure we have the answers to the tough questions.”

Many Californians are waiting for those answers, including Kevin Reed, the founder and president of The Green Cross, a medical marijuana dispensary in San Francisco’s Excelsior. He said he’s not sure if his customers and his business will benefit from legalization.

Just a matter of time

Since opening 10 years ago, he said, he’s taken pride in serving patients who need his product — and he doesn’t want the value of that mission diluted.

“The context disappears with legalization,” he said. “It just becomes getting high.”

Reed, though, also understands why people want to use the drug recreationally, and thinks it’s just a matter of time before the laws change.

“It’s going to be a different world,” he said. “It’s not really the world I signed up for. But I’m gonna take the ride.”

Kurtis Alexander is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: kalexander@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @kurtisalexander