What's the Point of Voting When Lawmakers Ignore the Vote?

You may recall last year that we voters here in Oregon passed statewide marijuana legalization. We're one of the 26 states with some form of citizen lawmaking ability, so we crafted a marijuana legalization initiative, got it on the ballot, and passed it with a 56 percent majority.

The initiative legalized personal marijuana possession and growing and established a system for commercial production, processing, and sales. Much of what was in the initiative was copied-and-pasted from our state's liquor laws, including two key provisions: only a vote of the people in a city or county could ban commercial marijuana licenses and only the state can tax marijuana.

Another huge provision in the new marijuana law was that it was not to affect the existing medical marijuana law. This was so prominent in the campaign for legalization that it was written into the initiative in three separate sections.

In order...

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URL: 
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/russ-belville/whats-the-point-of-voting_b_7266790.html