Voters Vote Yes, County Says No

Khyber writes in with a story from Montana, where residents of Missoula County voted in a referendum intended to advise county law-enforcement types to treat marijuana offenses as low-profile. The referendum would not have changed any laws, but was advisory only. After voters approved it, county commissioners overturned it by a 2-to-1 vote. They were swayed by the argument of the county attorney, who had a "gut feeling" that Missoula's electorate had misinterpreted the ballot language. The move has resulted in a flood of disaffection among voters, especially young voters. "Is there even a point to voting any more if the will of the people can so easily be subverted by two people?" one voter posted on a comment blog.

Comments

Here's a link

[GuyMannDude]

I found this story doing a Google search. From TFA:

The tone of the hearing shifted when Van Valkenburg said that he had proposed the amendments because of a "gut feeling" that Missoula voters were not "detail-oriented" enough to understand the complete scope of the initiative.

I think the only ones who failed the "detail-oriented" test are the slashdot editors who posted a story that references an article and a blog but failed to provide any links.

GMD

Some articles

[j1m 5n0w]

There was no link in the story, so here's some that seem to be relevant.

An article

relevant Google news search

Link

[FlyByPC]

http://www.missoulian.com/articles/2007/03/24/news /local/news04.txt

Man -- and I thought *I* was lazy. But too lazy to Google it? Wow.

I was there

[steampoweredlawngnom]

That meeting just reinforced my opinion that voting is pointless. There were 30 or so people who implored the commitee and commissioners not to amend the initiative, and 5 people ask them to amend it, 3 of which were law enforcement, one man was very, very elderly, and one man who actually claimed that "it was much harder for me to get off pot than marijuana."

The county prosecutor opened the meeting by telling us that we did not understand the initiative, to which many of us, myself included, assured him that we read the initiative in its entirety, and did understand it. When everybody was done speaking, he came back up and told us that he disagreed with us, and that we still did not understand the initiative. In addition, he showed us a map showing how the votes were distributed, and told us that since most of the votes were centered around the "metropolitan" area of Missoula, and not so much in the surrounding areas of the county, that it was not fair to voters to have this initiative.

I really enjoy living in Missoula for a number of reasons, but the local government is not one of them.

For the record, I did vote, and will continue to, regardless of my opinion that voting is purely symbolic.

Same behavior new state

[bhalter80]

This is the same behavior exhibited by the Massachusetts legislature in 2000 when the tax payers voted on a binding referendum to lower the state income tax rate from 5.3% to 5.0%. This time period was during a $1B annual surplus but the legislators stated that it was not finacially wise for the state to lower the tax rate and that the resulting decrease would not significantly benefit the tax payers in terms of cold hard cash. As it was a binding referendum the legislators simply passed a bill the next day to raise the tax rate back to 5.3%

It's Cannabis, not marijuana

[essence]

The correct name is Cannabis. Marijuana refers to cannabis sativa strains originating in Mexico. There is also cannabis indica, which is lower in THC (the 'high') and higher in CBD (which is more beneficial in some medical cases, such as cataplexy).

There are also two other main strains, Industrial Hemp being one of them, but also another which i cannot remember the name of.

Re:Link?

[tomhudson]

tis a problem with heavy pot smokers, they tend to forget things ;-)

Are you referring to the poster, or the slashdot editors?

http://www.kcfw.com/montana_news.php?id=01723a93ff e12ca09070c26c8713da13

The big problem many people said they have with last night's decision is that it undermines what the voters said they wanted last November.

During last night's hearing, a number of people protested the amendment saying commissioners don't have the power or the right to change the initiative but they did anyway. County Commissioner Bill Carey was the one dissenter in last night's vote. He said the commissioners do have the power to amend the initiative but he doesn't think they should have. He said it should have been given a chance. "I believe we should have implemented the initiative the voters approved. I suggested we should have given the initiative the voters approved a chance and if after a year or so, there really were problems, we should make amendments then," he said.

Carey said he hopes voters aren't too discouraged by last night's vote and he urges them not to give up on the democratic process.

I hear that everyone else was going "like .... bummer, dude!"

Re:Here goes my karma, I guess

[Anonymous Coward]

They do. They call it the "Politics" section.

Re:Here goes my karma, I guess

[value_added]

One could argue that voting issues certainly fall under 'Stuff that matters'.

I'd suggest that the only thing that "matters" for anyone keen on the subject is good music and lots of brownies. ;-) That said, there was a recent program on The History Channel on the subject that I found interesting. From a Wiki article on the Legal Issues of Cannabis:

Until 1937, consumption and sale of cannabis was legal in most U.S. states. In some areas it could be openly purchased in bulk from grocers or in cigarette form at newsstands, though an increasing number of states had begun to outlaw it. In that year, federal law made possession or transfer of cannabis without the purchase of a by-then-incriminating tax stamp illegal throughout the United States by passing the 1937 Marihuana Tax Act. This was contrary to the advice of the American Medical Association at the time.[2] Legal opinions of the time held that the federal government could not outlaw it entirely. The tax was $100 per pound of hemp, even for clothes or rope. The expense, extremely high for the time, was such that people stopped openly buying and making it. The decision of the United States Congress was based in part on testimony derived from articles in newspapers owned by William Randolph Hearst, who had significant financial interests in the timber industry, which manufactured his newsprint.

The key to criminalisation was the way in which Marijuana Tax Act of 1937 was written and passed.

The act did not itself criminalize the possession or usage of cannabis, but levied a tax equalling roughly one dollar on anyone who dealt commercially in marijuana. It did, however, include penalty provisions. Violations of proper procedure could result in a fine of up to $2000 and five years' imprisonment. The net effect was to make it too risky for anyone to deal in the substance.

The bill was passed on the grounds that cannabis caused "murder, insanity and death". Today, it is generally accepted that these reasons were fictitious; in 1951, Anslinger himself claimed that he had no evidence to support such a thesis. However, new reasons had emerged by then, which pushed through a bill that superseded the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937.

In 1969 in Leary v. United States, this act was found to be unconstitutional since it violated the Fifth Amendment, since a person seeking the tax stamp would have to incriminate him/herself.

To rephrase the above, if you wanted to deal in the stuff, you needed a tax stamp. Which required possession of the stuff. Which was ... wait for it ... illegal.

It's hardly surprising that in the decades since, the laws concerning cannabis are just as tortured and contradictory, especially when considered against the background of yet another new study that suggest alcohol and tobacco are more dangerous

Re:huh?

[Crudely_Indecent]

...nobody told the voters they got to choose the law,... State != feds. If a state has a law contradicting a federal law, the federal law overrules. Please, allow me to direct you to the Bill of Rights. The 10th amendment states:

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved for the States respectively, or to the people."

Now, the federal government claims all rights and allows the people to obey... But it isn't just the federal government, Governor Rick Perry tried to mandate the HPV vaccine to Texan girls without proper legislation... It's only natural for county government to follow the examples set by the larger government bodies... Why listen to the people when don't want to?

We've dealt with this same problem before. So did the French, and with a particularly nasty device.

Re:Here goes my karma, I guess

[Anonymous Coward]

Politics anywhere can affect us all. The original laws in this country that established the legal grounds for criminalizing marijuana possession and usage were funded by the lumber/paper industry and the cotton industry. They made donations to elected officials as well as paid for prejudiced research on marijuana. This process should sound familiar to you.

It wasn't marijuana they wanted to get rid of though but hemp, by focusing on marijuana propaganda they got hemp production in the US stopped as well as imports of hemp. Similar tactics have been repeated many times. Hemp had many uses at the time, including the production of paper and cloth, in fact the Declaration of Independance and the US Constitution are printed on paper made from hemp. Hemp would potentially be a great resource atm for replacing many hydrocarbon products currently used, so you can bet that the oil companies might join in any attempts to legalize hemp production. Hemp has a wide range of very good uses if you bother to research for them. Far too many to discuss here.

Marijuana prior to the 1937 Marihuana Tax Act had many medical uses and the American Medical Association opposed the passing of this act. This was mentioned by at least one other poster here but they didn't go in depth on it and neither will I for the purposes of this post other then to suggest everyone research a bit.

As I and others have stated here before, the only way we can change the current path of our government is to retake it from the current power structure from the local government on up. To do so requires the education of our fellow citizens and ourselves on what is really going on, on how it really should be and how to get it there. Therefore the events in some small town where the citizens have tried to reclaim their government (or some large city, or some other state) are of interest to us all, particularly when it involves governmental roadblocks to such repossession.

Will you ignore it when they come for those in Misoula, because your not from Misoula? (reference to the oft repeated quote) Btw, Thomas Jefferson and George Washington were hemp farmers and Jefferson was a big advocate of its uses.

Re:Follow the money

[spiritraveller]

It is only logical that a county attorney would want to continue prosecuting these cases, otherwise he might have to cut staff and save the taxpayers a few bucks.

I can't say exactly how things work in Montana, but generally a "county attorney" is the guy who advises and represents the county commission on the legal effect of proposed ordinances, their constitutionality (or lack thereof), and sometimes represents the county in civil cases.

Usually, the person who prosecutes criminal cases--representing the state rather than the county--is called the "district attorney".

Re:Missoula

[finkployd]

In the early morning hours of July 7, 2005, the Pennsylvania General Assembly passed pay increases for state lawmakers, judges, and top executive-branch officials. The vote took place at 2 a.m. without public review or commentary and Governor Ed Rendell signed the bill into law. The raise increased legislators' base pay from 16% to 34% depending on position. ...

Anger over the raise spawned several grass-roots movements, some geared toward voting out incumbents ...

Despite the repeal, a total of 17 legislators were defeated in the 2006 primary elections including Senate President Pro Tempore Robert Jubelirer and Senate Majority Leader David J. Brightbill. They were the first Pennsylvania legislative leaders to lose a primary election since 1964.

The November 2006 General Election claimed several more members who supported the pay raise including House Minority Whip Mike Veon, and Reps. Gene McGill, Matt Wright, Tom Gannon and Matthew Good.

[2] The defeats were attributed to anger over the pay raise.

Piss people off enough and it does happen.

Finkployd

Missoula County Commissioners' Office Contact

[Anonymous Coward]

My own thoughts about the futility of the Democratic process aside, one of the most beautiful things about said process is the fact that it's politicians are notoriously spineless.

If every person posting in indignation where to say, express their thoughts directly to the Missoula County Commissioners' Office, who knows what could happen?

oops, whats this?

Missoula County
Board of County Commissioners
200 W. Broadway
Missoula, MT 59802

Main Office Telephone Number: 406-258-4877

COMMISSIONER: JEAN CURTISS
Contact Person: Jean Curtiss
Phone: 406-258-4877
Fax: 406-721-4043
Email: mailto:jcurtiss@co.missoula.mt.us (or) bcc@co.missoula.mt.us
Location: Second Floor of Courthouse Annex Room 210

COMMISSIONER: BILL CAREY
Contact Person: Bill Carey
Phone: 406-258-4877
Fax: 406-721-4043
Email: mailto:bcarey@co.missoula.mt.us (or) bcc@co.missoula.mt.us
Location: Second Floor of Courthouse Annex Room 210

COMMISSIONER: BARBARA EVANS
Phone: 406-258-4877
Fax: 406-721-4043
Email: mailto:bevans@co.missoula.mt.us (or) bcc@co.missoula.mt.us
Location: Second Floor of Courthouse Annex Room 210

Re:Link?

[karmatic]

First off, it doesn't say the right of the militia to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, but rather the right of the people.

Furthermore: (10 USC 311)

311. Militia: composition and classes
(a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.
(b) The classes of the militia are--
(1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and
(2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia.

So, fine - the right of all able-bodied males between ages 17-45 to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. Sounds good to me.