Josh Marshall is right to view California’s failed effort to legalize marijuana in U.S.-centric terms and find it wanting.
But when viewed from the perspective of regional politics (and all politics is local), it was a bold step forward. The American consumer’s demand for drugs has thrust the neighboring state of Mexico into a bloody war. The black or gray market that Prop. 19 tried to regulate is international.
If you live in California, the fate of Mexico is not as abstract as the fate of the Afghans. It’s worth pointing out that the pro-business and quite conservative former president of Mexico issued a public statement only a week before the election praying to God (a conservative Catholic’s God), that the legalization measure pass in California.
Prop 19 may have been doomed as domestic politics but it was potentially productive as international policy. (Conversely, detaining people who happen to be driving while brown is not a very effective way to regulate an international labor supply.)
The tragedy of this movement is that it has not enlisted the vote of Mexican Americans who are interested in restoring order to their ancestral homeland and/or Christians who wish to see the bonds of slavery dissolved via compassionate treatment rather than incarceration (hate the sin, not the sinner).