Libertarian pot
This referendum might just pass: Tax Cannabis 2010, allowing the legalization of cannabis, allowing the selling and purchasing of small quantities (but each county can decide whether to allow sales or not) and taxing it.
I have never smoked pot, unless you count inhaling the smoke from some a certain relative of mine threw into a campfire once. I never plan to smoke or ingest it. You can put me on the ‘social conservative’ end of the spectrum when it comes to personal habits. I don’t smoke tobacco, rarely if ever drink alcohol or coffee even and have never taken non-prescription drugs (ok, so there was that time when I was 16 and drank some Jimson weed tea, which was really stupid). So I don’t have a horse in this race.
Yet on a policy side, I tend towards libertarian on this issue. Marijuana is relatively harmless when compared to two other legal drugs, alcohol and tobacco (though in comparison to eating vegetables, it’s not particularly benign either) and the enforcement of the anti-marijuana laws cause more problems than ever would be caused by legal use. I say, allow individuals to make the choice to use it or now, redirect resources to enforcement of laws against more egregious crimes, and perhaps save and make some revenue.
