What does being sober and being in politics have to do with politics? Well in the recent fight to defeat Proposition 19 quite a lot. As an independent campaign committee fighting against the measure which failed to attempt to legalize marijuana in the State of California for recreational use, I found my sober position constantly being ignored like a pink elephant in the room. Even though my fellow debate panelists knew I had suffered a 13 year addiction that started with pot and lead to serious health consequences as well as incomprehensible demoralization, I found myself being insulted, second-guessed with certain people and debated with people who deliberately were adding insult to injury. On more than one occasion I even encountered people who were in a 12 Step program that wanted to legalize and sell marijuana to the residents of California, even thought they understood the harms of picking up marijuana first hand, which of course was rather disturbing.
All those negative mean spirited things would have worked for the other side to get me to step aside and give up had I not been sober. They were unable to sway me. It was only during the last 11 months of campaigning that I began to really understand why we are cautioned in early sobriety to stay away from conflict and anger that is directed toward us. We are simply not strong enough both physically and emotionally to handle the negativities and jealousies of the world. This especially when we are thrust into the spotlight in midst of our early recovery.
Proposition 19 was defeated and the youth and parents of California as well as recovering addicts and those who are trying to gain recovery are one step closer to having a safer environment where drug dealers don’t run rampant from community to community. It was a great victory indeed.
Acting as if they were somehow duped, Prop. 19 proponents had a pretty hard time admitting publicly that they actually lost and tried to pretend that the loss was not real for them and that Prop. 19 was only a "test run." But having been on the front lines, I know how hard they fought and having experienced political losses prior to Prop. 19, I know they must be devastated.
They leveraged all they knew how while at the same time not realizing that California was no longer willing to take chances on marijuana. And for that matter, neither was the rest of the country including the Obama Administration. By sending the message of the people’s “NO” vote in several other states, a message of marijuana legalization is just not a priority was sent to the rest of the world. Chances are that marijuana legalization as a whole was a fad and a trend of lawlessness that is fazing out because communities have had enough from the crime and the dubious snake oil salesmen who peddle the intoxicating, mind altering weed.
In the end California who was expected to lead the world in irresponsible, out of control drug peddling under Proposition 19, now leads a sobering charge to do the right thing and look to our core priorities of creating a better California. Thanks to all the hard working community activists, drug preventionists, law enforcement and our civic leaders we are back on the right track to combat America's drug problem. That is to keep drugs illegal so they are less accessible while we streamline a solid prevention effort to educate our communities about the risks of drug use and addiction.
- Alexandra Datig
