County overturns peoples' votes in Missoula, Montana.

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Residents o f Missoula County (Montana) voted in a referendum intended to advise county law-enforcement types to treat marijuana offenses as low-profile. The referendum would not have changed any laws, but was advisory only. After voters approvied it, county commissioners overturned it by a 2-to-1 vote. They were swayed by the argument of the county attory, who had a "gut feeling" that Missoula's electorate had misinterpreted the ballot language. The move has results in a flood of disaffection amoung voters, especially young voters. "Is there even a point to voting any more if the will of the people ccan so easily be subverted by two peopole?" one voter posted on a comment blog. Another voter who attended the council where the referendum was overturned states, "The meeting just reinforced my opinion that voting is pointless. There were 30 or so people who implored the commitee and commissioners not to amend the initiative, and 5 people ask them to amend it, 3 of which were law enforcement, one man was very, very elderly, and one man who actually claimed that it was much harder for him to get off pot than marijuana. The county prosectuor opened the meeting by telling us that we did not understand the initiative, to which many of us, myself included, assured him that we read the initiaitve in it's entirety, and did understand it. When everybody was done speaking, he came back up, and told us that he disagreed with us, and that we stil did not understand the initiative. In addition, he showed us a map showing how the voters were distributed, and told us that since most of the votes were cnetered around the "metropolitan" area of Missoula, and not so much in the surroung areas of the county, that it was not fair to voters to have this initiative." Gary Longsine writes, "I live in Misosula and discussed this initiative with quite a few people, none of whom are sonsumers of unregulated or illegal substances. They all voted for this, and they all understood it clearly. 'The police should be investigating real crimes' was the most commonly cited reason. There are unsolved robberies every week in this town that receive, as far as anyone can tell, scant police attention. Police can build careers and the county can confiscate properly and general revenue 'busting people for drugs' but investigating robberies is hard work and not glamorous in any way. The people of Missoula county understand this clearly. The people overturned this will very likely be voted out of office next chance." Do you think it was fair for the Missoula County goverment to overturn the initiative?