Stephanie Taylor aka DragonfLIES publishes BS in JEMM. Conrad Responds…again.

A bit of a redux, but …

Dragonfly has revised her blog to include 19 reasons to vote against legal marijuana, which has been published in the LA JEMM. She took out the misinformation about new felonies, but added several new ones, i.e., that it would be illegal not to have a corporate business receipt with your marijuana (you could grow your own, for heaven’s sake) and that no initiative can be amended, when in fact Prop 19 does allow certain legislative adjustments. She overlooks whole sections such as Purpose 8 when it doesn’t fit her narrative and things like that. Rather than repeat her misinformation, I am pasting a bit from an article that I submitted and hope to see published in the upcoming LA JEMM. Lynette Shaw also submitted an article to the JEMM. Someone asked me if Dragonfly is Canadian; does anybody know?

CW: Her real name is Stephanie Taylor from Nashville, TN from what we can tell.

— Chris <chris@chrisconrad.com>
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… excerpt …

A much more complex and elaborate web of opinion, misinformation and conspiracy theories was woven together by someone writing under the name of Dragonfly de la Luz (‘Pro-Marijuana Activists,’ Vol 5:9, p94). Let’s go directly to the factual inaccuracies in her argument and work our way back from there. The most egregious of her inaccurate statements are contained in her so-called “facts” #2, #3, #5, #10, #15, #17, #18 and #19. Misinformation combined with speculation can sound convincing, unless you know the facts.

Dispatching her claims in order, in #2 the penalty for people 21 and above furnishing to minors age 18-21 (HS 11361c) is not mandatory and it approximates the alcohol law. Regardless of #3, business fees are directed to pay for business code enforcement (HS11302), not drug police. Despite #5, adults won’t need to carry receipts for marijuana to be legal, since they can grow their own and share with each other free and untaxed up to an ounce (HS11300a); she mixed up a requirement to keep business records with lawful personal behavior. In #10 / footnote 17, she simply ignores the fact that medical cultivation is protected in Prop 19 Purpose 8. Incredibly, in #15, the ‘corporate threat’ she theorizes about is based on an Oakland proposal under current medical marijuana laws but she blames Prop 19 which has not even passed yet. Prop 19 is written to benefit smaller growers by allowing more local control – nor could an initiative ban corporations from doing business.

One of the key factors in Prop 19 is that unless the state legislature steps in to establish controls, local communities have a lot of control over the shape of their cannabis businesses. This means that local consumers and small to medium size growers can organize into viable constituencies to protect their own interests. This is a window of opportunity flung open.

Dragonfly #17 simply ignores the entire Amendment section of Prop 19 that allows certain legislative and voter actions; i.e., the legislature can modify it, but only to make its limitations less restrictive, create a statewide distribution system or allow farmers to grow industrial hemp (Section 5 a, b, c). Contrary to #18, this is about the 19th time marijuana legalization has attempted the ballot and only the second time in 38 years it has qualified. Only Prop 215 medical use ever passed at the ballot box (1996). Finally, in #19, there is no reason whatsoever that another initiative could not qualify and pass in the future. That is a Constitutional right.

Once you see that 7 of the 19 ‘reasons’ Dragonfly proposes are based on factual errors, her whole argument collapses. Otherwise, she simply makes up her own “myths,” then exposes them as being … myths. But not all are. Prop 19 was not written to end the drug war (Myth 1) but it will certainly affect it. There is no new penalty for smoking around your children or in public (Myths 3, 11), it stays the same as now. It takes a super majority of voters to direct taxes to schools and health care (Myth 7), otherwise taxes go into the state general fund. Of course Prop 19 has regulations and controls (Myths 8, 9), that’s its name. That’s what polls show the voters want. Myths 12, 13 and 14 are speculative opinion with nothing factual to rebut. Same with Myth 16, although she omits a useful fact, the Rand Corporation opinion that the price of marijuana will drop significantly. Myth 15 comingles corporations, conspiracies and cartels, but experts including former President of Mexico Vincente Fox believe that legalizing marijuana will be important in resolving the drug war raging within that nation’s borders.