On November 2, Prop 19 will go to the ballot in California. The proposed law would take legalized marijuana consumption beyond the realm of medicinal use only. It would allow individuals aged 21 & over to grow and posses limited quantities of marijuana, and local governments to authorize and tax its sale. Supporters say the pragmatic measure would free up much needed jail space and police time, and help balance Californias budget. If you live in California, please consider voting YES on Prop 19.SuicdeGirls called up marijuana expert and Toke Of The Town editor Steve Elliott to get some clarity on the issue, and to find out more about the history and politics surrounding marijuana prohibition in America.Can you tell me how long Marijuana has been illegal in America?73 years. [It was outlawed] in 1937, as alcohol prohibition was coming to an end. Some of these federal agents that had been like revenuers, were worried about their prospects for employment now that alcohol was going to be legal again in the United State. One of those guys, Harry Anslinger, decided that marijuana needed to be against the law.The fact that is was used primarily by Mexicans and blacks, it seemed to him [to be] a good reason that is should be outlawed, that it should be cracked down upon. And the fact that jazz musicians and what he saw as the underclass of society was associated with it, made it easier for him to get those scare tactics going. To get thosestories out there in the newspapers at this time, the yellow journalism of the Hearst variety that was so prevalent then. Of course then the 1936 moviewas one of the biggest factors, because it scared the hell out of so many parents and these respectable Middle class Americans when they saw these kids smoking pot and going wild and, and losing their inhibitions. It basically came down to fear and misinformation, and frankly racism.And it passed fairly easily in 1937? Was there much of a fight?There was not much of a fight at all. One of the only people who testified against making marijuana illegal at those hearings in 1937 was a representative of the American Medical Association, a Doctor Woodward. He testified that cannabis has lots of medical uses. He said that if we remove it from the pharmacopeia, we're removing one of the best tools we have in fighting many diseases and conditions. But his testimony was ignored in the general rush ofparanoia. In fact his testimony was misrepresented and lied about. Because one Congressman told the rest of the assembled body, many of whom weren't in a position to know better, that Dr. Woodward of the AMA had in fact testified for the illegalization of marijuana, when in fact the exact opposite was the case. So that's another level of misinformation and subterfuge going on that got us this original medical marijuana prohibition in 1937.Then in 1970, as a result of the changes that were going down at the time, the student revolts on a lot of campuses, Richard Nixon saw marijuana as an opportunity to crack down on his political enemies.Between 1937 and 1970 was the government going after people and prosecuting them?It was. The way that they were doing that was through a backdoor method, by placing a big tax on marijuana. Of course nobody paid it, and when you were caught with marijuana, you were technically being busted for tax evasion. Because you hadn't paid this sky high tax that they had placed on it. At a federal level the law they had against pot was that tax law at the time. It was unclear that they could actually ban a plant, so that's the back door that they took.So in 1937 the idea of banning a plant seemed so "out there" thatthey chose instead to do it this way.It does speak [for itself] that they actually had some qualms about it, that they chose to do it through the back door through the Marijuana Tax Act , rather than just saying you can't grow this plant anymore. I think that seemed a little bit absurd to those lawmakers at the time and that's why they chose to do it the way they did with the tax.So you're saying that in the 1970s there's civil unrest in America, and the Nixon administration sees marijuana as part of that.Right. Nixon, of course, felt that marijuana was closely associated with the hippies and the student radicals that were fighting against his policies. So he thought, okay, I could get lots of bad publicity if I go after these guys simply for being against me politically. But if I use the marijuana issue as a wedge, I can drive a stake right in the heart of this student radical movement because most of them smoke pot anyway. So he decided that he was going to declare that war on drugs, which he did.He assembled a commission which he felt would be safe to give him the results that he wanted. What he did was assemble the Shafer Commission . These were some of the top drug policy experts in the country. But they surprised the president by coming back to him with a recommendation that he decriminalize marijuana, that they stop going after pot smokers in their homes for privately using it.[Nixon] went nuts. He even made a couple of racist remarks about what are these Jews thinking? He rejected their conclusions, and he decided to go the exact opposite way of what his own experts recommended. They recommended decriminalization. He made it against the law and declared a war on drugs. Marijuana being the biggest part of that war on drugs, because it was the most widely used.Interesting. And that's where our modern drug laws come from?Yes. As far as all the mandatory minimums, the crackdowns, the disparity between, say, crack cocaine and powder cocaine. All of those came as a result of Nixon's original war on drugs. They kept piling on more penalties for several years afterward, including the Rockefeller drug laws in New York State that became so draconian, of course, that the prisons everywhere were filled up with nonviolent drug offenders. In many cases, [the number of imprisoned] marijuana offenders just started breaking the budget. [They were] locking people up and throwing away the key for what would before have been seen as minor drug cases.And then the first move in the other direction was the medical marijuana laws.That happened. But before the medical marijuana movement happened there was a movement in the '70s spearheaded largely by NORML , the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. What they started doing, and successfully did in I believe 13 states in the late '70s, just in that decade, has knocked those penalties down in those states from a felony to a misdemeanor. So where as you might have served jail time before, now if you were caught with under an ounce, the rule was in most of the states that you might get away with a fine and probation.They had some success with that.They did have some success. That kind of ran dry with the advent of the Reagan years. Jimmy Carter was the only sitting president we've ever had to advocate from the White House for the decriminalization of marijuana. He famously said, while in office, that the penalties against a drug should not be more harmful than the drug itself. He said that in reference to marijuana, and he said that in defense of his stance on the decriminalization of marijuana.But he didn't have much success with Congress, and when Reagan came in, he reversed that. Reagan's quote on pot was, "Marijuana is the most dangerous drug in America today." He actually said that. I don't know if he believed it or not. But that was his line. All of those gains that were made in the '70s were basically rolled back, and you know, Nancy was the "Just say no!" lady.[laughs] Right.They actually were threatening retailers that sold. Edwin Meese, who was Reagan's Attorney General at the time, was throwing his weight around. Of course, he got slapped down on First Amendment grounds pretty quickly. But he was, at first, being a total dick about it.They were blustering and threatening. They didn't get too far because of the First Amendment, but what they did do was put a chilling effect into the market. What happened was a lot of retailers, without there being a rule against doing so, just became intimidated. They became scared enough so they stopped carryingWhy take the risk of them closing your business for one publication.Right. That's exactly the outcome I believe the Reagan administration was looking for. For a while it became questionable if publications likewere going to survive. Since they couldn't just say we're shutting you down - the First Amendment was in the way of doing that - they just did the intimidation tactics, and a lot of retailers stopped carrying it.Then the next era was then the medical marijuana initiative. California led the way, as usual, in '96.Yes. In 1996 voters there approved medical marijuana. They also did that same year in Arizona, but their law was flawed because the legislature amended it to require a doctor's prescriptions. And doctors can't prescribe marijuana because of its status as a Schedule 1 drug on the federal level. What they can do, and its the loophole that has been used in all the medical marijuana states since then, is they can recommend marijuana.And then it has gained momentum?Right. It didn't take long for other states like Washington and Oregon - the next election here in '98 they passed it. Since then, the domino effect has come into play. Now we have 14, and others like South Dakota will be voting on a medical marijuana law for the second time in November. South Dakota is the only state where medical marijuana has ever lost at the polls that I know of. A few years ago, they voted on it, and it narrowly lost. This will be their second time.California now is leading again with the first decriminalization initiative as well. They're calling it the Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act , but it is officially a legalization initiative because it would remove criminal penalties for adults 21 & over for an ounce and under or for a 25 square foot garden. So while its limited legalization, and while that bothers some activists, it is a big step towards, making cannabis legally available to adults.Similar to Reagan, hasn't the Obama administration sort of warned Californians, saying, if you pass this law, we're going to come down on marijuana in California?Attorney General Eric Holder did say that this week. He said that they would continue to "vigorously enforce the marijuana laws." Now that's the opposite tactic they've taken medically. Because they have tried to take the hands off position with medical. But apparently, this is farther than they're willing to go.Now how much teeth does Holder have? Possibly not many because the Federal Government really doesn't have the aegis to go in and start going after individual users. What they might do is go after the retailers, in the way that the Bush and Clinton administrations continued to bust dispensaries in California and elsewhere, even though they were legal under state law. That policy has been largely abandoned by Obama. But with general legalization, I think that that may be the scenario that we return to.But doesn't it seem a little bit like they're warning all the dispensaries who are allowed to do business now in California, who are supporting this initiative, you know, Hey, if you continue to support this and it gets passed we're gonna clamp down on what you're currently doing.That may well be the intended effect. I wouldn't doubt it. It's hard to say what they're thinking, but I think they are going to run into some significant opposition, both legally and politically if they carry through on that threat. They also seem too understaffed to go after marijuana as vigorously as Holder seems to imply that they will.Now, if they do choose to do that, of course there are going to be casualties. There will be people who get long federal mandatory minimum sentences. People who weren't even violating California state law, who were in fact trying to go by the letter of the law in California. That opens the ugly possibility that these people will catch some long federal sentences, which I think keeps a lot of bigger businesses out of the industry. It keeps a lot of people who have things to lose from starting a business in this space.I think that's the affect they're going for, and I think that Holder and the Obama administration might also have been hoping to influence the vote by officially saying you can't do this. I think the practical effect though, in the real world, will be that they will increase the number of "Yes" votes by saying you can't do this. I can't imagine that Californians will bend over and let the Federal Government tell them you can't vote your conscience on marijuana.If I still lived in California, I know that I would be very upset at the Attorney General or any other elected official in any position of power telling me that I can't change the law by voting to change the law. That seems to me to be a fundamental violation of democratic principles. It seems to me to be arrogant and dangerous for elected officials to tell voters you can't do this - even if you vote like this we're going to ignore it. And that's not just limited to federal officials like Attorney General Holder, you have LA County Sheriff Lee Baca saying, "Proposition 19 is not going to pass, even if it passes." That's a quote from late last week. Because he says he will continue to enforce marijuana laws even if the people of California vote for Prop 19.When you have law enforcement officials like Sheriff Baca showing such a blatant disregard not only for the will of the voters and for the democratic process, but also for the law itself, what do you do? You have a law enforcement officer saying I don't like this law, so I'm going to keep enforcing the law the way it was before. That seems to me an impeachable offense.Yeah. You're making a real smart point that I've never really even thought of. You're saying, the Federal Government, this sheriff, they believe that they are above the consent of the people. That really, it does not matter what the majority of people in California want, they know better than that.That seems to be what they're saying, and the hubris of it is just amazing. I can't believe that any other issue besides marijuana could have produced this kind of disconnect between the will of the voters and what we're hearing from politicians who are supposed to express that will, to put it into action. Especially if voters approve an initiative like Prop 19. That should be respected by any person who says I respect the law - because at that point Prop 19 will be the law. To have a sheriff saying he will continue to enforce it, and in the fact appoint himself a federal agent by choosing to enforce the federal law - that seems pretty incredible to me.It seems like marijuana is a lot more present and acceptable insociety than it was twenty years ago. Do you think that's true?It really is. And having been involved in this subculture for as long as I have - I started smoking pot in 1977 and that's when I started paying attention to the marijuana subculture - I can tell you that things have changed enormously since then. Now when I first became involved, it was a time of optimism. That's when President Carter was in office saying that we needed to decriminalize. That's when the wave of decrim laws was still cresting across the nation and states were reducing penalties for possession.But of course then the Reagan years were a big backslide. The Bush, the elder years continued exactly in Reagan's vein. And even Clinton continued with those repressive policies against even medical marijuana and medical marijuana dispensaries. The fact that Obama - even when he ran he said he would de-emphasize medical marijuana - the fact that he won and actually kept that promise is one big sign that the culture is changing around us as we speak. The fact that we see medical marijuana advertisements now on certain TV stations, on certain radio stations, and in practically every alternative weekly in those states where it is legalized, it shows us that medical marijuana has gradually been working its way into the mainstream. More now than ever I see the demographics of marijuana have changed to the extent that it isn't just young people, it isn't just baby boomers, it extends all the way up into senior citizens now. A lot of people that you might otherwise never suspect are using marijuana, either medically or recreationally, or both.How do you see the law changing in the next decade?I think what we're going to see in the next decade is a continuing domino effect on medical marijuana laws in individual states. I think by the year 2021 we're going to have legal medical marijuana coast to coast in the United States. Or at the very least, I think you will be able to start driving on the West Coast and drive completely across the United States to the East Coast without crossing into a state where medical marijuana is still illegal.Can we talk a bit about your personal history and how you started theblog?Sure. I got a great opportunity to dobecause, close to four years ago now, I started my personal blog,. It got a few page hits. I became a user at, where you can direct lots of traffic to your site if you have friends there. I made friends at, and I got some attention for mysite, which was turned into a twice-weekly column for theonline. That of course is owned by Village Voice Media and they noticed that those columns in thewere getting a lot of page hits. They offered me the chance to run, which was their new pot blog. It started up in late November of 2009, and it has been a great year actually. It has received a lot of attention and a lot of success for which I'm very grateful. I have had the time of my life actually for the past year doing it.I think just being relaxed around the whole marijuana culture, and not being so defensive and paranoid about it is the way to go forward with this - and really to submit our gaze into American popular culture. I think, right now, is the most exciting possible time to be a marijuana activist for a number of reasons. One of the biggest ones of all is that we're about to win. There is no way around it. Marijuana is going to be a part of American culture going forward. It's going to soon become a legal and accepted part of American culture.The enormous amount of cultural energy and excitement that surrounds the cannabis question makes this one of the most exciting fields to work in right now. I think people feel that excitement from the cannabis culture as a whole. I think that there is a feeling of inevitability and a victory in the air around the marijuana cause. And I think that people are ready to enjoy the marijuana culture. They're ready to enjoy the fact that they are members of that culture without all of this hiding in the closet - without all of the paranoia, without all of the denials, and without all of the fear. I think that as we light that light up in one person's head at a time, where they say being afraid to speak up and being cowed down is no way to go through life. Life is too short for that and it's time to stand up and say: Yes, I smoked pot. No, I'm not a criminal. Yes, we need to change these laws.