Steller: Here’s how, and why, I voted on Props. 205 and 206

What do you do when you’re conflicted about how to vote?

Some people flip a coin.

Other people might consult with their spouses and maybe work a trade — one spouse voting each way.

I suppose dart-throwing could also work — if you get an early ballot and are really good at throwing darts.

Me? This year I’m balancing my own votes with myself.

Both of the statewide initiatives, Prop. 205 and Prop. 206, have put me in dilemmas. Put those two dilemmas together — two choices times two different ballot measures — and you might call it a four-way dilemma. But I’ve figured out a way to solve it, almost like untying your shoes with the pull of a lace.

I’ve written extensively on Prop. 205, the measure to legalize the use and sale of marijuana for any adult 21 and over.

The reasons for the measure are obvious and have underlain the pro-legalization argument for years: Adults should be free to use cannabis if they want, legalizing should shrink the black market, and resources dedicated to stopping marijuana traffic could be diverted elsewhere.

Yes, the 15 percent tax on marijuana would also raise some money for education, but the possible benefit is so small as to be practically insignificant. If we pass Prop. 205, marijuana taxation is projected to raise $39 million for K-12 education in 2019. That compares to the approximately $4.6 billion the state spends on schools, and more than $10 billion that the schools get through all revenue sources.

So, there are good reasons to support Prop. 205, though education funding isn’t much of one.

The problem is, the initiative sets up an unfair system for legalizing marijuana and, of course, enshrines it in a way that makes it almost impossible for us to change. The initiative puts the current medical-marijuana-dispensary owners in a near-monopolistic position for the first four years after it takes effect in 2017.

The proposition also fails to remove marijuana crimes in a sufficiently sweeping way, making it more of a niche legalization.

I also am uncomfortable with the marijuana industry that put this issue on the ballot. As legitimate as the industry is becoming, some parts still have problematic links to the addiction crisis and other seedy sides of the drug world. A more robust legalization effort would confront head-on the negative public health effects of cannabis.

So I’m voting no, in the hopes that a better legalization scheme comes along sometime. In the meantime, recreational users can continue to take advantage of the medical-marijuana system the way they already are — as an expensive, de facto recreational marijuana system.

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And I’m doing so in spite of the fact that it means I’m siding with Glenn Hamer and the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry, which has put almost $1.5 million into defeating Prop. 205.

I disagree most of the time with that chamber, but more than that have been disappointed in its sycophantic way of dealing with the Governor’s Office. This began for me in spring 2015 when the chamber took positions on all kinds of state issues but stayed silent on the most important issue of the day — one that everyone else was taking stands on — the state budget and its treatment of education.

Thankfully, the chamber has also put $25,000 into defeating the minimum wage initiative, Prop. 206. That means I have a second chance to fight the power structure in Phoenix and an opportunity to balance my votes.

That initiative would raise the current minimum wage, $8.05 per hour, to $10 in 2017, $10.50 in 2018, $11 in 2019 and $12 in 2020. It would also force employers to give employees one hour of paid sick time for every 30 hours worked, up to a minimum of 40 hours of sick leave per year.

I opposed that idea, mandatory sick leave, when it was proposed just for Tucson, but it seems workable to me if it’s applied statewide.

It’s imperfect and would make things harder for some small business owners, as Jerry and Kathy Sullivan, owners of Sullivan’s Eatery and Creamery, explained in Tuesday’s paper. Labor costs will rise for some businesses, and some low-wage jobs will dry up, as employers turn to automation or simply don’t hire to keep costs down.

Some of that will undoubtedly happen if we pass Prop. 206.

But on the other hand, our economy has shown again and again that it adjusts relatively painlessly, on the macro scale, to increases in the minimum wage.

In a December 2015 paper, two researchers published a review of five dozen analyses of the minimum wage and its effect on employment. In other words, they looked at the last 15 years of research on the subject. Their conclusion:

“As a whole, this literature provides no support for the position that minimum wage policy in the United States has had any detectable effect on employment, either negative or positive.”

So I’m voting yes on Prop. 206 and hoping that, despite the relatively steep increase in the wage, it won’t have a significant negative impact.

And it will make a few tears trickle into a few Starbucks cups up in Scottsdale and Paradise Valley on Nov. 9.

It’s an imperfect way to decide how to vote. But it definitely beats flipping coins and throwing darts.