No Surprise: California GOP Against Pot Legalization

With sad predictability, the GOP’s conservative apologists for the status quo in California have dutifully lined up against the Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010, which will appear on this November’s ballot in the Golden State.

The California Republican Party wasted no time in making their opposition to marijuana legalization official, reports Joe Garofoli at SF Gate.

The degree of the CA GOP’s non-adjustment to the modern world can perhaps be gauged from the official position statement’s repeated use of the 1950s scare term “dope” when referring to marijuana.

“The last thing California needs is hundreds of thousands of more people getting high, and the costs to society that would come from widely expanded drug use,” said GOP chair Ron Nehring Wednesday.

“We know a top factor behind whether young people try drugs is cost, and legalization would certainly bring the cost of dope down, making it much more widely accessible,” Nehring said.

“We also know that if a person makes it to age 21 without trying drugs, they’re very unlikely to ever get started down the path of drug use beginning with dope and leading to much harder drugs like meth and cocaine,” Nehring said.

“Proponents of legalizing ‘and taxing’ dope are trying to mask their efforts as some kind of revenue generator for state government,” Nehring sneered. “Whatever ‘taxes’ dope smokers would pay would not come even close to covering the societal costs of hundreds of thousands of more Californians getting high, the accidents and health problems they would cause, and other societal costs,” he claimed.

“California Republicans will fight this and any other measure to expand drug use in California,” Nehring self-righteously proclaimed.

“When it comes to this kind of legislation, there’s a reason they call it ‘dope’.”

That certainly doesn’t leave any doubt where the Republicans stand when it comes to standing up for the rights of marijuana smokers in California.

The state’s Democratic Party is expected to weigh in after their executive board meets in July, reports Matt Coker at OC Weekly.

Editor’s Note: Please follow Steve Elliot on Twitter, and The News Junkie Post to stay updated on all of our article.