Oregon Measure 80 is still losing 45-55, with 61% of the vote counted. The Oregonian has called it.

California's three strikes reform, Prop 36, is up to 68%, with 14% of precincts partially reporting.

Montana still losing 58-42 (or passing -- which for us means losing).

Arkansas is still losing 48-52, with 65% reporting.

Note that it's possible that some news outlets may have higher percentages reporting, if they got results through routes other than the state web sites.

The Seattle Times has called victory for Initiative 502.

Two states have legalized marijuana today!

http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_21941918/nation-watches-colorados-marijuana-legalization-vote

(Hat tip Eric Sterling for the link.)

First marijuana legalization vote!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There are postings on Facebook saying that Colorado's Amendment 64 for marijuana regulation has been called as passing. I don't think that's possible, with the amount of reporting so far. What I think people are thinking of is that the Denver Post has projected it passing. Things are looking very good, but I don't think it's been called yet.

As of 8:12pm mountain time, the Colorado secretary of state site shows Amendment 64 leading 671,027 to 610,202, over 52% in favor. The site says that Colorado has 3,647.082 registered voters, with 31.41% of them having had votes counted so far. Assuming Colorado doesn't get 100% voter turnout, does this mean half the vote counted so far? Very promising.

Update (8:24pm mountain time): MPP says exit polling is at 57%.

Today is the big day! Marijuana legalization is on the ballot in Washington, Oregon and Colorado. Medical marijuana is getting votes in Massachusetts, Arkansas and Montana. And California is voting on a much-needed reform to the states draconian "three strikes you're out" law -- not solely drug policy reform, but includes drug offenses within it. There are also some measures on local ballots. See Phil's report last week for an overview.

Phil and I will be posting late into the night tonight on all of the initiatives as well as candidate races of interest, here on the Speakeasy and in Drug War Chronicle. Phil is a few hours out from Denver, and so his reporting will be done live from where the Colorado action is. Check all of it out here at StoptheDrugWar.org.

In the meanwhile, what does the latest polling say? In Washington, polls conducted last month through early this month show I-502 leading by margins ranging from 4 to 19 points, with support ranging from 47 to 56 percent in favor and 36 to 44 percent opposed.

Polls in Colorado taken during the same timeframe show Amendment 64 in the lead with margins ranging from 10 points on the upper end down to just one end on the lower. Support ranges from 46 to 53 percent and opposition ranging from 40 to 45 percent.

According to the Denver Post (via Jacob Sullum), half of people who have already voted in say they voted yes on Amendment 64, but more than half of those planning to vote today plan to vote yes:

"Passage would be driven largely by the support of younger voters, who sometimes are less reliable, turnout-wise, than are older voters," the polling firm SurveyUSA, which conducted the survey for The Post, wrote in a memo explaining the results. "Older voters oppose Amendment 64, and if the amendment should go down to defeat, it will be because younger Coloradans talked the talk but did not walk the voting-booth walk."

 

No pressure or anything, young voters, says SSDP's Aaron Houston.

Only three polls have tested Oregon's Measure 80, one in late September and two in October. Support and opposition have both risen (not surprisingly, as undecided voters make up their minds), and the last one has the measure losing 49-42. Oregon reformers should still turn out to the polls, though -- margin matters, even in a defeat -- plus a poll is only a prediction -- the only poll that counts is the big one happening taken today.

See you online tonight!

Our own Drug War Chronicle editor Phillip Smith debates former ONDCP senior adviser Kevin Sabet on the addiction and recovery web site The Fix today:

Should Marijuana Be Legal?

Tomorrow, three states will vote on the most profound change in US drug laws since the repeal of the Volstead Act in 1933. The Fix offers two powerful opposing views on whether legalizing weed is the right thing to do.

 

By the way, Phil is on the way to Denver right now, where he will be reporting live on Amendment 64. He will then be attending the National Marijuana Business Conference, also in Denver.

Readers of StoptheDrugWar.org know that we've supported Initiative 502, a ballot measure to legalize and regulate marijuana in Washington State. I-502 has seen the strongest polling among the three legalization measures on state ballots this year, and has attracted significant mainstream support -- its chances of passing this Tuesday are good. The measure has also been the subject of controversy within the movement, particularly over a "per se" DUI provision some advocates believe will unfairly snare some users including patients. If you've followed our coverage of I-502 in Drug War Chronicle, including two of our recent features (here and here), you're familiar with all of this.

Today StoptheDrugWar.org formally endorses Initiative 502. In this post I explain why we believe the measure helps, not harms, most medical marijuana patients, and defeating it would therefore harm patients; why I believe other attacks leveled against the measure to be misguided, despite some legitimate concerns; and why we at StoptheDrugWar.org consider passage of I-502 to be critically important.

The reality facing Washington's patients today is that they may soon lose safe access to marijuana. The federal government is conducting a sustained attacked on the medical marijuana supply system in states across the nation, including Washington's, and local opponents have also stepped up their efforts. Legislation that would have authorized dispensaries, which could have provided some political cover for providers in Washington, was vetoed by the governor. Just this August the DEA sent 23 threat letters to dispensaries in Washington, only the latest of many moves against the industry. And there is no indication that DOJ under Obama or Romney will let up after the election, hope for that as we might. Washington a few years from now may have no medical marijuana supply system at all, if something doesn't change to shift the balance in our favor.

In Washington, the medical marijuana system is already a smaller one than available in some other medical marijuana states, despite courageous efforts by its leaders. Fewer patients qualify for legal protections under the list of conditions authorized under state law; it's likely that a smaller proportion of the state's residents live within easy geographic proximity to a dispensary as well. A 2011 report by See Change Strategy, prepared before the escalated federal and local crackdowns, found 11,000 dispensary customers in Washington, compared with 500,000 in California -- fewer than 1/8 as many, adjusted for the states' populations. Compared with Colorado, Washington's system -- again, before the crackdown -- served fewer than 1/14 as many people, adjusted for population.

But even those numbers understate the true depth of harm done to patients by the current system. All of us know people who suffer from conditions that could well be treatable using marijuana, but who may never find that out -- because they won't try it while it's illegal, or because their physicians aren't comfortable recommending marijuana without being able to guarantee the quality of the supply. Along with the current patients whose current safe access to marijuana may be slipping away, this other, possibly much larger group of potential patients, are also being badly harmed by the current situation -- by prohibition.

In the face of the federal onslaught, we believe a victory is needed at the ballot in order to shift the political dynamics in our favor. While some have suggested this could be accomplished in 2014, with a different initiative, that seems poorly thought out. Along with that meaning two more years and all that can happen in that time, 2014 is an off year election. That means that election turnout demographics will work against any such initiative, because off years favor the conservative voting base that leans against marijuana reform, over the liberal base that leans toward it. Funders witnessing a loss this year by a carefully regulated initiative, will in turn be unlikely to bet on a more loosely written one passing the next time. Progress of this scale -- enactment by a state's voters of actual legalization, not just medical marijuana or decriminalization, a historic first -- will probably be out of reach again until 2016. Public support for legalization in principle continues to grow and is now around 50% nationally. But while we believe support for legalization is likely to continue to grow, we don't know that it will and we can't take that for granted, especially if we don't win something. Legalization needs a victory this year.

We also believe that more people than just the currently recognized patients need the protections that legalization of possession -- and of legal sales, if I-502's state-licensed stores survive the likely federal opposition -- will provide for them. Washington had between 12,000 and 15,000 arrests per year between 2006 and 2010 -- 240,000 total marijuana arrests from 1986 to 2010. Those include minors who will still face age limit laws under I-502. But half or more of these arrests would clearly stop under the new law. A marijuana arrest is a big deal; in Washington it includes a fine and mandatory jail time in most cases. Defendants spend money on legal fees; they face restricted access to housing and college aid; they become disadvantaged in the job market.

I-502 won't undo all of this harm, but it will undo a lot of it. The characterizations opponents have made of the initiative as providing only "limited" or "modest" benefit are bogus. Even more strained is the claim some opponents have made that I-502 is not even legalization. But I-502 legalizes possession and sale of marijuana, albeit within a particular framework -- of course it's legalization. Some forms of legalization do more of what we want than other forms. Advocates make compromises, if they are effective, because they understand that that is what's needed to change things.

A final argument opponents have made is that I-502 is not legalization because federal law will preempt the state licensing system and could endanger other parts of the law. But while preemption is a risk, it's not a given -- no federal prosecutor has even tried to legally preempt a state's medical marijuana law, for example, in 16 years of them. And the same line of reasoning would say that any legalization bill passed by a state would really not be legalization, because federal prohibition is still in place. Which of course makes no sense -- and which would mean that initiatives some critics of I-502 have attempted to place on the ballot were not legalization either. Obviously our goal is to change both federal and state law.

It's possible we might have reached a different conclusion about I-502, if we were persuaded that DUI busts because of I-502 could happen commonly. But the critics have ignored key facts about the issue in order to make that case. The provision excludes the inactive but long-lingering marijuana metabolite, THC-COOH, from the reach of the law, counting only the shorter acting THC metabolite. It leaves in place the "probable cause" requirement on police of impairment being demonstrated before they can lawfully stop a driver and order a drug test. Police still need to spend time and money taking a driver to the station for a full drug test -- they can't just write a ticket and drop the drugs off for testing later.

Perhaps for these reasons, the 13 states that already have similar provisions have not seen perceptible increases in DUI busts. Yet movement opponents of I-502 scarcely acknowledge any of these points; a recent editorial by Sensible Washington treasurer Anthony Martinelli is a good example. Leaving them out skews the issue very badly. Conversely, however, one should admit that some marijuana users in Washington may get stuck with a DUI charge that they don't deserve -- and if you're one of those few people, it won't necessarily help you that there are only a few. There is a legitimate issue at stake with the DUI provision and it's a legitimate discussion to have. But it's a very different scenario than the doomsayers have presented.

It has been charged that movement opposition to I-502 is driven by the financial motivations of people profiting from medical marijuana under the current system. But while this is doubtless one thing that is going on, some of the critics of I-502 are respected advocates, including personal friends, who have never had a financial motivation for their activism. With all due respect to them, we believe they have badly misjudged the I-502 question, in at least the following ways: They have misidentified the primary threats facing medical marijuana patients. They have dramatically overestimated the realistic impact of the DUI provision -- ignoring relevant facts in order to do so. And they have underplayed the scope and significance that passage of I-502 will have, both legally and politically.

StoptheDrugWar.org endorses Initiative 502, a major step forward for the legalization movement, and a necessary step to help secure the rights of many thousands of marijuana users, including patients, and others.

[Washington's I-502 is one of three initiatives on state ballots to regulate rather than prohibit marijuana. We encourage all supportive parties, as we have before, to make phone calls to likely supportive voters in Colorado and Oregon -- for which a "phonebanking" web site has been provided by our allies -- for those in Washington to contact the campaign to volunteer in person. Links to the campaigns and to a "phonebanking" web site provided by our allies are linked to from our election resources web page at http://stopthedrugwar.org/election2012.]

I read the news last night that Russell Means, Oglala Sioux native American and libertarian activist as well as actor, has passed on. Numerous tributes to Means can be found online.

Means was a keynote speaker at the 2001 Students for Sensible Drug Policy conference, the organization's third national gathering launching nationally two years before. We had a few words about it in our newsletter at the time:

American Indian activist and libertarian candidate for governor of New Mexico Russell Means gave a rousing keynote address linking the war on drugs to myriad other social problems and arguing that fundamental social change is both necessary and urgent. Means professed to be strongly moved by the new wave of student activists. "This conference has touched my heart," he said at a Saturday night dinner.

We shared office space with SSDP for many years, and I remember when Means agreed to speak. I remember Means saying that and it sounding heartfelt, and I remember watching his exciting presentation. I don't know if there is video footage, but if anyone finds any, please post.

France is about to become the latest European country to allow supervised injection sites to operate. Some could be open by year's end, the French health minister said. Chronicle story here.

New polls show Washington's I-502 still leading, but Oregon's Measure 80 doing badly. Chronicle story here.