Rabble rabble rabble Prop. 19 rabble rabble!

Alright, this is how it breaks down.

First of all, everybody who voted yes, thank you. Thank you so much for doing your part in this battle. Your efforts were not in vain. The reality is Prop. 19 had a very realistic chance of losing right from the get-go. All we could do is support it and hope that there were enough of us. Unfortunately there weren't, but we made our voices heard. Think of the magnitude of this. Look at how many people on Trees got involved. Look at how many people who aren't even from mother fucking California took part in this. I'm from fucking Toronto, this shit has nothing to do with me and most people I talk to don't know Prop. 19 even exists, but here I am passionately reaching out to my fellow Ents.

To those of you who are angry
Good. It's good that you're angry. We should all be angry to some degree. The reality is it did lose, we lost this battle. The war however is far from over. Don't get stupid, now is not the time for stupidity. We came very close, roughly 500k votes difference. This is now your call to action. We've seen how close we can come in California which is an especially large political influence on the rest of the country. We were fortunate to see (at least) Tennessee pass a recreational marijuana law. So lets concentrate our anger and use it constructively. Your passion is the key to the success of marijuana legalization in the long run.

To those who are apathetic
I understand that getting angry doesn't really seem accomplish anything, and it's very easy to just say "oh well, next time." But we can not just sit here and remain apathetic. Feel what you want to feel about Prop. 19, but we have to start looking forward. We have to get over this defeat immediately and start acting.

Where do we go from here?
This right here is the pivotal moment. Prop. 19 isn't what defined us. As I said, we've lost a battle, not the war. We need to work hard from here on in so that next time we get a major opportunity to legalize cannabis we win. Don't let your anger get the better of you, and don't get apathetic to the point of laziness.

Regardless of who voted, if we work hard on educating people and standing up strong for what we believe should be a fundamental right, the right to choose within' the confines of reasonable law to smoke marijuana.

Young people don't vote, get over it, it's nothing new. In fact, people in general don't vote. On average only 50% of eligible voters actually get out and do so. Most of those people are seniors.

We put a lot of focus on just getting more of us to go out and vote. The problem with this is as long as the myths about marijuana exist and people don't truly understand the illegitimate politics behind it it will not pass. We need to focus on educating people who just don't know. They're the ones who are going to make the integral difference next time.

We have to start looking forward Ents. We need to stop being shut-ins and we need to make people understand our point of view. We need people to make a smart decision not based on lies and misunderstandings and ignorance and propaganda. We also need to stop feeling sorry for ourselves. We're still going to enjoy marijuana. We need to get active, and we need to get openly passionate. We should be running websites on marijuana education, we need to be joining in on protests and petitions, we should be contacting our elected officials regularly in massive numbers. We need to make sure people hear us, know what we stand for, and understand that there is in fact a right and a wrong on this topic, and we've spent way too long living with a society that is completely wrong about it.

California Ents, good job.
This is our call to action boys and girls.