Every day there are more and more stories in mainstream media outlets about Prop 19 and the growing national movement to end marijuana prohibition. That alone is a promising development. But what’s even more telling has been the way the tone of the coverage is starting to shift from asking, “Should marijuana be legal?” to, “Is marijuana going to be legal? And if so, when, where, and how?”

Check out just three examples from today:

Wall Street Journal: “Democrats Look to Cultivate Pot Vote in 2012”

Democratic strategists are studying a California marijuana-legalization initiative to see if similar ballot measures could energize young, liberal voters in swing states for the 2012 presidential election.

NPR: “Has the US Reached a Tipping Point on Pot?”

California's Proposition 19, if approved by voters, will legalize possession of small amounts of marijuana legal for the first time in the United States. Many other states have relaxed their marijuana laws. Is this the tipping point when marijuana follows alcohol and gambling from criminal offense to harmless pastime -- and source of new tax revenue?

New York Times: “Will California Show the Way on Marijuana?”

Like it or not, the tens of millions of people in California serve as a laboratory for new legislation, and their state sets a legal example that the rest of the states might follow. So, even if you do not live in California, pay attention to Proposition 19: maybe someday marijuana may come to a store near you.

In July, I wrote about the growing belief among political strategists that candidates can benefit from supporting marijuana reform. Just last week, the Oregon Democratic Party endorsed Measure 74, the ballot question that would add state-licensed dispensaries to that state’s medical marijuana law.

Remember who's helping to fund the campaign against Prop 19.

The Marijuana Policy Project has largely sat out the campaign to end marijuana prohibition in California this election cycle, but the recent escalation of infighting among allies who claim to support marijuana legalization has inspired me to speak out, and firmly.

The best way to explain is to tell a true story about something that happened just across the border, in Nevada, in 2006.

MPP was in the midst of campaigning for our ballot initiative to tax and regulate marijuana like alcohol in Nevada. (Only six statewide initiatives to end marijuana prohibition have ever been voted on -- one in California in 1972, one in Oregon in 1986, two in Alaska in 2000 and 2004, and two in Nevada in 2002 and 2006. The highest voter-getters were the 2004 Alaska initiative and the 2006 Nevada initiative; each received 44% of the vote.)

Surprisingly, one of the leading libertarians in Nevada -- someone who had real access to mainstream media outlets -- told me he was going to oppose our initiative. The reason? As a libertarian, he didn't like taxes, and he didn't like regulations.

I explained to him that it's one thing to be disappointed with the exact wording of the initiative, but it's another thing to actually oppose the initiative. He didn't budge.

I then pointed out that if he opposed the initiative, he would also have to endorse making alcohol illegal. "How interesting," he said, wondering what I meant.

I expounded that -- by campaigning and voting against the marijuana initiative -- he would be choosing to keep marijuana illegal instead of taxing and regulating it. So, if prohibition is somehow preferable to taxes and regulations, he should prefer alcohol prohibition over alcohol being taxed and sold in bars and restaurants.

I never heard from him again, even to this day. But, to his credit, he ended up not campaigning against the initiative, I think because he's well known to be intellectually honest and consistent.

The same dilemma now faces anti-prohibitionists in California, except, unfortunately, some anti-prohibitionists are choosing to advocate for prohibition, because Prop. 19 isn't "perfect enough," they imply.

One need not be a lawyer to find something not to like about Prop. 19, if one looks hard enough. The initiative gives local governments the option to prohibit or legalize the sale of marijuana; perhaps you prefer not to give local governments any option at all? The initiative allows all adults to possess up to one ounce of marijuana; perhaps you prefer a pound or more? The initiative allows all adults to grow 25 square feet of marijuana; perhaps you prefer not allowing grow-your-own at all?

These kinds of debates are legitimate and -- to be sure -- it's literally impossible to reach a consensus on any of these points before or even after a statewide initiative is drafted and qualified for the ballot. So the issue isn't whether a consensus can be reached.

Rather, the issue is whether anti-prohibitionists really want their souls to be burdened with voting to prohibit marijuana -- which is what they'd be doing by voting against Prop. 19 on November 2.

Have you ever heard a marijuana user say the following? "I don't want marijuana to become legal, because it would take the fun out of it. It would make it less glamorous."

I respond to such pea-brained declarations of adolescent rebellion by saying, "Oh, because you want to have more fun, you therefore want the government to continue arresting more than 800,000 people every year for what you, yourself, are doing? And you want to spend my tax money -- and yours -- to accomplish this?"

How selfish.

Of course, to be fair, people who say they like the glamour of being an outlaw don't really want more than 800,000 of their brethren to be arrested every year for marijuana. It's just that the glamour-seekers are losing sight of what's really important: They're choosing a public policy that resonates with them (keeping marijuana allegedly "cool" because it's illegal), while inadvertently overlooking the horrible byproduct of that choice (arresting the equivalent of every man, woman, and child in the state of Montana every year, forever).

So, to bring it back to California, it's important that opponents of Prop. 19 at least be intellectually honest: By opposing the initiative for whatever reasons one has, the tradeoff is that more than 60,000 people will continue to be cited for marijuana offenses every year in California. That's not something that I'd want to have on my conscience.

Going back to the top of this column: Many people who remember the 1972 initiative in California, which lost with 34% of the vote, muse nostalgically about how great it would have been if that initiative had passed ... how it would have changed the whole course of events, especially in the midst of President Nixon's administration. But have you read that initiative? It was inferior to this year's initiative in California.

And you know what? Coincidentally, they're both labeled "Prop. 19." The first Prop. 19 failed 38 years ago; do we really want to lose again, in just a few weeks?

Please visit Yeson19.com to support the current campaign.

Yesterday, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill that downgrades the possession of up to one ounce of marijuana from a misdemeanor to a civil infraction.

This new law means that the more than 60,000 people who are arrested in California every year for small-time marijuana possession will no longer be arrested, given criminal records, or have to appear in court. Instead, they will receive a $100 fine similar to a parking citation. SB 1449 will also save California untold millions in reduced court costs.

And as Paul Armentano at NORML points out, this change will still have a positive impact on California’s marijuana laws even if Prop 19, the measure to make marijuana legal for all adults, passes:

Proposition 19 leaves misdemeanor possession penalties in place for public use and smoking in the presence of children; under SB 1449, these offenses would be simple infractions.

Remember, only 17 days left to register to vote in California.

For the second time this week, a poll of likely California voters shows Proposition 19, the measure to make marijuana legal for all adults, ahead – this time by more than 50 percent.

In a just-released survey of 2,004 adult residents throughout the state, the Public Policy Institute of California shows Prop 19 leading by a margin of 52 to 41 percent. Earlier this week, the California Field Poll found Prop 19 up 49 to 42. Some details from the PPI poll:

Among California’s likely voters, 52 percent favor the proposition to legalize marijuana. Strong majorities of independent (65%), Democratic (63%), and Latino (63%) likely voters support Proposition 19 when read the full ballot title and label, as do those age 18–34 (70%). Half of voters (49%) say the outcome of Proposition 19 is very important, with those opposed to the initiative feeling stronger about the outcome: 65 percent of those who plan to vote no say the outcome is very important, compared to 42 percent of likely voters who plan to vote yes.

Again, these numbers are promising, but they’re no guarantee. All Californians who support sensible marijuana policies need to make sure to come out and vote yes on 19 Nov. 2 – and tell your friends and family to do so as well.

And if you haven’t already, also check out the Yes on 19 campaign site, and register to vote.

Check out this great video from LEAP, in which executive director Neill Franklin explains how prohibition has destroyed the relationship between law enforcement officers and the communities they police. "When I talk to young people, they say the only reason you come into our neighborhood is to search us for drugs," says Franklin, a 33-year law enforcement veteran. "I want us -- cops -- to be the ones that kids can come up to in the streets when they have an issue or a problem. Not run in the other direction."

The United States could improve its national budget by nearly $18 billion annually if we taxed and regulated marijuana like alcohol, according to a newly released study from the Cato Institute.

“The Budgetary Impact of Ending Drug Prohibition,” by Harvard economist Jeffrey A. Miron and Katherine Waldock, a doctoral candidate at the Stern School of Business at New York University, estimates the amount of money state and federal governments could both save from reduced expenditures and make from tax revenue, if marijuana and other drugs were made legal, taxed, and regulated.

The report concludes that, between savings and tax revenue, government budgets would improve by $17.4 billion annually if we regulated marijuana, and approximately $88 billion annually if we regulated all drugs.

Those are some pretty big numbers. But this part of the conclusion is what really caught my eye:

“About half of the budgetary improvement from legalization is due to reduced criminal justice expenditures. But for this component of the impact to show up in government budgets, policymakers would have to lay off police, prosecutors, prison guards, and the like. Because such a move would be politically painful, it may not occur. It is certainly true that reduced expenditure on enforcing drug prohibition can still be beneficial if those criminal justice resources are re-deployed to better uses, but that outcome is difficult to achieve.”

Politicians might not have the stomach for it, but luckily we live in a country where many states can enact laws through ballot initiatives, such as Prop 19, the marijuana legalization measure Californians will vote on this November. According to the Cato report, making marijuana legal in California could raise $351.88 million in tax revenue, and save about $959.75 million in government expenditures. That’s more than $1.3 billion annually.

In July, the California Board of Equalization estimated that the state could collect up to $1.4 billion by ending marijuana prohibition.

You probably guessed wrong.

Peter Shumlin (D), the president pro tempore of the Vermont Senate, is one of only two major-party gubernatorial candidates in the nation to advocate publicly for the decriminalization of marijuana. (The other candidate is Dan Malloy, the Democratic nominee for governor in Connecticut.)

On August 10, just two weeks before Vermont's primary election, Shumlin said on television, "We simply are penny wise and pound foolish to be using law enforcement dollars to be locking up criminals when they're dealing with small amounts of marijuana." He was consistent all the way through the campaign.

By making marijuana decriminalization -- the removal of all criminal penalties for possession of small amounts of marijuana -- a major campaign issue, Shumlin was able to overcome the odds by prevailing in a five-way Democratic primary.

His opponent in the Nov. 2 general election, Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie (R), is ultra-hostile to decriminalization efforts.

Supporters of sensible marijuana policies must do everything we can to help Shumlin get elected on November 2. If we succeed, Vermont has a good chance of decriminalizing the possession of marijuana, as well as allowing a handful of medical marijuana dispensaries to provide patients with improved access to their medicine in 2011.

When I met Shumlin in a Springfield cafe in 2002, he impressed me with his candor, especially since he was telling me the opposite of what I wanted to hear.

Howard Dean (D) was governor and about to run for president, and Shumlin was helping him steer clear of controversy by bottling up our medical marijuana bill in the state Senate. I suggested to Shumlin that he was single-handedly preventing medical marijuana from becoming legal. "Don't kid yourself," he responded. "Governor Dean would veto the bill anyway, so I'm just saving everyone the trouble." He went on to say that he'd help pass medical marijuana during the 2003-2004 cycle.

He kept his word. With his help and the leadership of state Rep. David Zuckerman (Progressive), our medical marijuana bill was enacted into law in May 2004.

The story of our 2004 victory points to how we plan on being successful again in Vermont, if we can get Shumlin elected.

Vermont's original medical marijuana bill, which sought to allow patients and their caregivers to grow their own marijuana for a variety of medical conditions, passed the Democrat-controlled Senate in 2003. But the bill temporarily stalled in the Republican-controlled House health committee, where we were shy of a majority vote.

One legislator on that committee, Rep. Bill Keogh (D), publicly said he'd support our bill if a majority of his constituents voted for the local medical marijuana initiative that would soon be on the citywide ballot in Burlington, the state's largest city. The initiative then received 83% of the vote, Keogh changed his vote, and we therefore reached majority support on the committee.

But we had a governor problem. Jim Douglas (R), who replaced Howard Dean in January 2003, had publicly stated he was opposed to the bill. So we ran a heavy rotation of three TV ads in Vermont -- separately featuring an AIDS patient, a cancer patient, and an MS patient -- to pressure the governor and the legislature.

In the meantime, we were gathering postcards to the governor from concerned citizens all across Vermont. A reporter who was writing a story about our lobbying juggernaut was flipping through the postcards and noticed a name of particular importance -- Kenneth Angell, the Catholic bishop of Vermont.

After the bishop released a public statement in support of our bill, the governor and the House health committee chair cut a deal: They'd let the bill pass out of committee, provided it would protect medical marijuana use for only three medical conditions; coincidentally, they chose AIDS, cancer, and MS.

The bill passed out of committee and also on the House floor, and Gov. Douglas let the bill become law without his signature.

Because there were no abuses of the new law, we were able to expand it in 2006 by increasing the number of medical conditions and the number of ounces/plants that patients could have. This expansion became law without controversy.

Flash forward to this year: On March 2, the voters of Montpelier, the state capital, passed a local marijuana-decriminalization initiative with an overwhelming 72% of the vote. And a bill to expand the state's existing medical marijuana law to allow for the sale of medical marijuana through nonprofit dispensaries, which was cosponsored by Shumlin, passed three different Senate committees in March.

Vermont is poised to pass both a decriminalization bill and a dispensary bill next year, if Shumlin gets elected this November 2. In Vermont, successful gubernatorial races cost only $2,000,000 or so for the winning candidate; the Marijuana Policy Project has already raised/donated $14,000, and we continue to ramp up. Please help us make it happen.

(Note: This article also appeared on the Huffington Post.)