California Proposition 19 failed in the midterm elections for 2010 with the majority of California voters (over 50 percent) voting against the legalization of Marijuana in the state.
The people who supported Prop 19 targeted the youth and first time voters 18 year olds and college students, trying to encourage this demographic to vote Yes on proposition 19. They also believed that legalizing Marijuana would reduce crime, reduce overcrowding in prisons by releasing non-violent criminals, and help with the economy through cannabis sales.
The reason the younger voters were targeted was because the majority of pot smokers are younger people. Many people who need cannabis for medical reasons were in favor of the proposition. The opposition had different reasons for why they didn’t want to approve the legalization of Marijuana, ranging from promoting people to be unproductive and promoting drug use that could cause danger on the roadways due to the impairment from being high on weed. Some others who were opposed to prop 19 claimed they didn’t like the idea of big business making a huge profit off of the drug and being taxed high amounts for legalized Marijuana like the type of tax added to cigarettes sold.