Thursday, November 4, 2010

Proposition 19

Proposition 19 is an effort to legalize cannabis, aka marijuana, in the state of California. The legalization would make the substance regulated and taxed and could potentially bring in $14 billion in a single year. This makes cannabis the largest cash crop in the US ahead of corn and cotton. The rally for the support of the law reformation is centered upon social media to gain support and get the information out.

An article on the Huffington Post website talks about the top ten reasons to support the legalization. Reasons include the tax benefits to the end of the Mexican black market for the substance. Instead of writing a straight long winded article, I like how they made a list and filled in a small amount of information for each point. This appeals to today's younger crowd because most readers, like myself, will be browsing the internet and stumble on this list and be able to read it quickly, get the idea, and move on.

Jeffrey A. Miron, the director of undergraduate studies of Harvard's economics department, said on all247news.com that since the proposition failed yesterday advocates should take a different approach next time around. I found these articles via "Stumble Upon". Stumble is a toolbar added to your browser that allows you to input your interests jump from website to website that fall into your interests. It is essentially like putting the internet on shuffle. This form of new media is quite amazing allowing you to send interesting things to your friends that will show up on their toolbar. I changed my interests to drugs to see how many hits I got about Proposition 19. The result was about 2 out of every 5 "stumbles" ended up being about the marijuana debate.

Even though the proposition failed by a vote of 54% no and 46% yes, the way advocates got the word out and gained support was good because most people who would support such a proposition are younger and use the internet extensively.

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