The Prop 19 Train Wreck

Mark Kleiman has a good post explaining the inevitability of Eric Holder's stance on California's marijuana legalization proposition, and the ambiguities as to what will actually happen if it passes.

I agree with Kevin Drum that in many ways this is the best feature of the proposition, which otherwise suffers from a number of technical flaws typical of the policymaking-by-initiative process. At the end of the day there's a real need to revisit the underlying premise that regulating the availability of a moderately unhealthy recreational substance is something that needs to be done at the federal level. Especially given that this is a country where, in practice, police authority is overwhelmingly exercised at the state and local level I think it would make a lot of sense to decentralize policymaking on this front. But Congress isn't going to just take up the cause for no reason, only an atmosphere of crisis would prompt action.