Let's Hope Jon Stewart's Audience Really Is Full of Stoners—and Not the Lazy Kind

The Yes on 19 campaign has a new TV ad, funded by a recent infusion of cash from antiprohibitionist benefactors George Soros and Peter Lewis, that it plans to run in California during The Daily Show and The Colbert Report on Comedy Central. The initiative's backers are also sending a contingent to the Jon Stewart/Stephen Colbert rally in Washington, D.C., on Saturday. The Drug Policy Alliance's Ethan Nadelmann explains:

Supporters will march in business suits—not Birkenstocks–to reinforce the message that there is no archetypal marijuana legalization supporter. The desire to end marijuana prohibition crosses ideological and partisan boundaries. Calls for reform come from across the entire political and social spectrum—this week it was George Soros in the Wall Street Journal, today it's students, civil rights leaders, law enforcement, major unions and moms. Our presence at the rally brings these voices together.

"The entire political and social spectrum"—all the way from George Soros to students who watch The Daily Show. Nadelmann, who usually makes more of an effort to form alliances with libertarians and conservatives, might want to throw in this endorsement (or this one) or mention some pot-tolerant Republicans the next time he is trying to illustrate the ideological diversity of Prop. 19's supporters. Katrina vanden Heuvel does not serve that purpose herself, but she does graciously offer this in her recent Washington Post column on Prop. 19:

As editor of the Nation, it's not often that I find the magazine in a bipartisan alliance with Reason magazine. And the National Review was on board for legalization when William F. Buckley Jr. served as editor a decade ago.

That bipartisan part makes me a bit queasy, but her heart is in the right place. Likewise New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, who yesterday cited libertarian economist (and Reason contributor) Jeffrey Miron's recent Cato Institute paper on the budgetary impact of legalization in a essay that concludes, "I hope California will lead the way on Tuesday by legalizing marijuana."

[Thanks to David Goldberg and Harry Levine for some of these links.]