SEIU Endorses Pot Legalization

The New York Times reports that the Service Employees International Union, one of California's most influential unions (for now), plans to endorse Proposition 19, the marijuana legalization initiative:

At the very least, the support by the S.E.I.U., which claims over 700,000 members in the state, could make it easier for other groups to rally around the measure. More practically, it means access to the union's considerable campaign apparatus, which could finance mailings, telephone calls and leaflets.

As the Times story mentions, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition held a press conference yesterday featuring former cops and judges who support Prop. 19. LEAP has a roundup of the press coverage here. Prop. 19 also has been endorsed by the California NAACP and the National Black Police Association.

Former San Jose Police Chief Joseph McNamara, who lists three reasons to support Prop. 19 in the November issue of Reason, elaborates in the San Jose Mercury-News. In a recent Washington Post op-ed piece, historian Héctor Aguilar Camín and former Mexican Foreign Minister Jorge G. Castañeda argue that legalizing pot in California could help end the prohibition-related violence that has killed more than 28,000 people in Mexico since 2006.

Comments

[ola]

get the bong

[Joshua Corning]

My view is Pot smokers should stfu and vote yes.

It has happened far to many times in the past that the stupidity of pot users has knee capped real progress in legalization.

Let the adults speak this time. Your pot fetish rants will only harm the cause.

[heller]

So you bought into the drug warrior's propaganda about the intelligence of pot smokers?

[SIV]

I didn't but a lot of pot smokers act like they did.

[MNG]

SIV
Surely any day freedom loving right wing orgs are going to start endorsing legalization in CA, right?

[SIV]

You make it too easy douchebag.

The Republican Liberty Caucus(founded by non-other than Eric Dondero) has endorsed proposition 19. Jerry Brown, Feinstein and Boxer all oppose it.

[Spur]

Well - than its gonna pass...

[Spur]

Well - than its gonna pass...

[Joshua Corning]

Drug warriors are morons...any group that consistently lose to them are by default dumb.

[heller]

So libertarians are dumb?

[ola]

lighten up francis, the stupidity of pot users has done no such thing. it is more likely people who are now over the age of fifty who have been the politicians and policy makers heretofore. look at the demograhpics of the recent polls. over fifty say no. under fifty say yes. you just have to wait till those older voters die off and the demarcation between yes voters and no voters gets higher in age.

[Puff-pass]

So instead of campaigning we should...nap?

[TallDave]

Dammit, just when I nearly had my enemies list finalized they go and dissonate my congition.

[heller]

Can I see your Marijuana Farmers Union identification sir?

[dunkel]

Cognitive dissonance is a lovely phrase, but having one's cognition dissonated is a delicious way to phrase it, and I will now steal it. Thanks TD.

[Geotpf]

But I thought they were too busy self-destructing?

[Spoonman.]

Stopped clock, I guess. Maybe they're hoping to unionize grow ops.

[Episiarch]

"Dude! That was my skull!"

[Pro Libertate]

His greatest role. By far.

Little known fact: Penn was a libertarian until he hit his head with the shoe.

[Episiarch]

Speaking of Penns, Footloose was on last night. You know the montage where Kevin Bacon teaches Chris Penn (the good Penn, unfortunately dead) how to dance?

SO GAY. I forgot how gay. No homo.

[Pro Libertate]

It was an 80s thing.

[Episiarch]

No, it was a Footloose thing. There is a lot of homo-eroticism in that movie, which is why Warty likes it so much. NTTAWWT.

I mean, doesn't Kevin just seem not that interested in Lori Singer throughout the whole thing?

And don't get me started on Kenny Loggins.

[Pro Libertate]

My point was that there were other movies in the unintentionally gay genre. It was pretty weird back then, too. I remember watching Top Gun and thinking, "What the fuck?" Thus inventing the now classic phrase.

[Episiarch]

"Top Gun is fucking great. What is Top Gun? You think it's a story about a bunch of fighter pilots. It is a story about a man's struggle with his own homosexuality. It is! That is what Top Gun is about, man."

[Pro Libertate]

A completely accurate assessment. And why Tom Cruise needs to come out of the closet.

Val doesn't have the gay, though. Top Gun was like his Caligula.

[Episiarch]

Val was married to Joanne Whalley. He doesn't have to prove anything.

[Pro Libertate]

Yes, that gives you a permanent not gay rating.

[Pro Libertate]

Not you you, Val.

[Episiarch]

And then there's this:

"Following their appearance together in Top Gun, Kilmer and co-star Tom Cruise reportedly had taken their onscreen conflict offscreen. Reports classified the two as holding a vitriolic hatred of one another. Kilmer even refused to participate in a charity beach volleyball game with Cruise on the grounds that he was, quote, 'dangerous', although Kilmer is noted to have knocked out Cruise when a fistfight between the two developed during the filming of Top Gun."

[Pro Libertate]

If that story isn't true, it should be. Val stood up for all men on that day.

I wonder if the rap on Kilmer as being difficult to work with isn't, in fact, mere Scientological revenge for his smackdown of Cruise?

[Episiarch]

According to many of the directors he's worked with, he's not a problem.

I never thought of a Scientology angle before, but considering how vindictive they are...

[Pro Libertate]

I've heard the same thing from directors and co-stars. Yet he does have that reputation. It's simply got to be Scientology protecting the Cruise.

[Episiarch]

That rep came about from the Dr. Moreau shoot, because he clashed with Frankenheimer. That whole production was a clusterfuck of the highest order.

[Pro Libertate]

I heard it before that flick, but I still don't believe it. Any number of actors and directors have flat-out denied that he's difficult, going so far to say that he was a nice guy on set.

Man, Cruise wields some power, doesn't he?

[Bill Clinton]

You don't have to inhale to enjoy it.

[Shannon Love]

I think that the unions are just upset that the drug dealers are muscling in on the unions traditional leg breaking racket. Can't have a successful union unless you can prevent others from competing with you.

Besides, you know they're thinking "Pot Picker Local 258 -- The HIGHEST Standards!"

[Joshua Corning]

Public service employees sit at a desk all day and do nothing. Yet they must still pass a piss test to keep their jobs

Their desire to legalize pot is fairly straight forward.

This is perhaps the one good use of mind numbing do nothing bureaucracy in the history of the world.

[lol]

it's pretty convenient that all the mexican authorities become against prohibition AFTER they leave office.

[wylie]

Because, in Mexico, I guess they don't have to worry about vote-pandering to a religo-conservative base....oh wait...

[Apologetic California]

So fucking what? They're still union assholes bankrupting my state.

[cynical]

Maybe they think pot taxes will provide some money to shovel their way?

[MNG]

B-b-but, THUGS!

[R C Dean]

Thugs on drugs, much better.

[Spur]

You could see this coming - the UCFW in So Cali endorsed Prop 19 a month or so ago - they were my mothers union and while they did do some good stuff from a selfish pov, i.e. me getting good, cheap healthcare for 21 years - I was shocked to see they endorsed prop 19. If this passes the drug war is over, finito, done, put a fork in it, as the pro-war opposition can outspend us 20 to 1 if they want and prolly will...

[MP]

Prop 19 = SEIU Jobs

[Pain]

I'm all about any support for this initiative but what the hell is the SEIU's business in this? How does this have any relevance to what they are supposed to be doing for their members?

I mean if I was a member who did not agree with their position I'd be pretty pissed they were throwing money at this.

[Spur]

A lot of SEIU members smoke or have/are people in the business...

[just another lurker]

I haven't read the NYT article linked (because I refuse to sign up with them) but I'd take this alleged 'support' with a big grain of salt. Washington State had their own legalization initiative drive recently; SEIU was also initially promoted as supporting it, and then they actually did squat.

[B]

That's nice. Wish they had gotten on board with a similar initiative here in WA a couple of months back...we might be on the ballot.

[IceTrey]

Stop calling it legalization. It's decriminalization, since it shouldn't have been illegal in the first place.

[Amakudari]

Former San Jose Police Chief Joseph McNamara, who lists three reasons to support Prop. 19 in the November issue of Reason, elaborates in the San Jose Mercury-News. In a recent Washington Post op-ed piece, historian H?ctor Aguilar Cam?n and former Mexican Foreign Minister Jorge G. Casta?eda argue that legalizing pot in California could help end the prohibition-related violence that has killed more than 28,000 people in Mexico since 2006.

These seem like a reference to Matt's request for pro-Prop 19 op-eds, in which case I'm pretty sure this is almost all of them. The political class is really against this.

So what does the SEIU have against this? Drug use being used to fire employees as a way around the typical constraints? Just an abuse of dues? I'm kind of at a loss here. Good news in any case, because the pro-Prop 19 campaign is pretty underfunded.

[The Bearded Hobbit]

I'm surprised, no, shocked that no one has posted the link to the Saturday Night Live opening sketch from their first year featuring Laraine Neuman leading a march and asking to "Look for the union label"* when buying pot.

* Parody of an ad by the Ladies Garment Workers Union.

... Hobbit

[Jillian Galloway]

$113 billion is spent on marijuana every year in the U.S., and because of the federal prohibition *every* dollar of it goes straight into the hands of criminals. Far from preventing people from using marijuana, the prohibition instead creates zero legal supply amid massive and unrelenting demand - the scale of the harm this causes far exceeds any benefit obtained from keeping marijuana illegal.

According to the ONDCP, at least sixty percent of Mexican drug cartel money comes from selling marijuana in the U.S., they protect this revenue by brutally torturing, murdering and dismembering countless innocent people.

If we can STOP people using marijuana then we need to do so NOW, but if we can't then we must legalize the production and sale of marijuana to adults with after-tax prices set too low for the cartels to match. One way or the other, we have to force the cartels out of the marijuana market and eliminate their highly lucrative marijuana incomes - no business can withstand the loss of sixty percent of its revenue!

To date, the cartels have amassed more than 100,000 "foot soldiers" and operate in 230 U.S. cities, and it's now believed that the cartels are "morphing into what would be considered an insurgency" (Secretary of State Clinton, 09/09/2010). The longer the cartels are allowed to exploit the prohibition the more powerful they're going to get and the more our own personal security will be put in jeopardy.

[Mr. FIFY]

Finally, SEIU does something good and useful.

But they still suck.