title: West Virginia Mountaineers football

text: The Friends of Coal Bowl between West Virginia and the Marshall Thundering Herd has been noncompetitive, as Marshall has never beaten the Mountaineers in 12 meetings. There is considerable doubt for the future of the Friends of Coal Bowl as the final game of the series was played in 2012 and there are no plans to renew the series.


title: West Virginia Mountaineers football

text: The teams met 20 times between 1921 and 2011, every year from 2005 to 2011, as conference foes and members of the Big East Conference. West Virginia leads Cincinnati in the series 13-1-3 since 2011.


title: West Virginia Mountaineers football

text: West Virginia has produced seven Heisman Trophy candidates. Major Harris is the only Mountaineer to be considered as a finalist for the award, garnering consideration in the 1988 and 1989 seasons.


title: West Virginia Mountaineers football

text: A total of 20 Mountaineer players and coaches have been finalists for numerous . Don Nehlen and Calvin Magee have won awards as coaches, while Dan Mozes, Pat White, and Tavon Austin have earned awards as players.


title: West Virginia Mountaineers football

text: Forty Mountaineers have been recognized as First-Team All-Americans by various media selectors. Among those selections, 12 have achieved Consensus All-American status. Of those consensus All-Americans, four were unanimous selections.


title: West Virginia Mountaineers football

text: During WVU's 18-season tenure in the Southern Conference, a total of seven Mountaineers were recognized with superlative conference honors. Art Lewis received Coach of the Year distinction on consecutive occasions (1953 & 1954) while Bruce Bosley was named the SoCon Player of the Year and Jacobs Blocking Award winner in 1955. During WVU's 21 seasons in the Big East, a total of 12 Mountaineers were recognized with superlative conference honors. Don Nehlen (1993) and Rich Rodriguez (2003) were unanimous selections for Big East Coach of the Year, while Todd Sauerbrun was the unanimous selection for Big East Special Teams Player of the Year in 1994 and Amos Zereoué was the unanimous selection for Big East Rookie of the Year in 1996. Tavon Austin was WVU's first Big 12 Conference award recipient, garnering Co-Special Teams Player of the Year honors in 2012.


title: West Virginia Mountaineers football

text: From 1950 to 1967, West Virginia competed in the Southern Conference. During their 18 seasons in the SoCon, a total of 35 Mountaineers were recognized as First-Team All-Southern Conference selections.


title: West Virginia Mountaineers football

text: The Mountaineers competed in the Big East Conference from 1991 to 2011. During their 21 seasons in the Big East, a total of 61 Mountaineers were recognized as First-Team All-Big East selections. Among those players, Tavon Austin (as a Return Specialist, 2011), Noel Devine, Pat White (2007), Eric Wicks (2006), Adam "Pac-Man" Jones (as a Cornerback, 2004), Grant Wiley (2003), Barrett Green, Canute Curtis, Aaron Beasley (1995), Todd Sauerbrun (1994) and Adrian Murrell (1992) were unanimous selections by the conference.


title: West Virginia Mountaineers football

text: Since joining the Big 12 Conference in 2012, 15 Mountaineers have been recognized as First-Team All-Big 12 selections.


title: West Virginia Mountaineers football

text: West Virginia has retired five jersey numbers. It is the highest possible accolade to achieve within the Mountaineer football program.


title: West Virginia Mountaineers football

text: Introduced in 2016, the West Virginia University Mountaineer Legends Society is the second level of recognition for the WVU football program. The Legends Society program replaced the retirement of a jersey number, which had previously served as the second form of recognition. Jersey number retirement remains the highest attainable honor for the WVU football program.


title: West Virginia Mountaineers football

text: Honors include addition into the team's Legends Park outside of Mountaineer Field and in graphics on column wraps around the stadium's concourse in a "ring of honor" configuration.


title: West Virginia Mountaineers football

text: The following individuals have been inducted into the Mountaineer Legends Society for their contributions to the Mountaineer football program:


title: West Virginia Mountaineers football

text: The West Virginia University Sports Hall of Fame is the first level of recognition for past members of the Mountaineer football program. Former athletes, coaches and administrators are eligible for selection 10 years following their association with WVU athletics. It is the first step of recognition for former players, coaches and administrators. The following individuals have been inducted into the WVU Sports Hall of Fame for their contributions to the Mountaineer football program:


title: West Virginia Mountaineers football

text: The National Football Foundation, overseer of the College Football Hall of Fame, recognizes ten individuals as WVU inductees. Conversely, the Mountaineer football program recognizes 13 individuals as inductees.


title: West Virginia Mountaineers football

text: Two Mountaineers hold the distinguished title of Pro Football Hall of Fame inductees. Joe Stydahar, an offensive tackle, was inducted in 1967. Despite Stydahar's impressive collegiate career, Chicago Bears owner/coach George Halas took a chance in selecting the little-known tackle with the Bears' first ever draft selection in the 1936 NFL Draft. Halas's gamble paid off as "Jumbo Joe" produced an illustrious playing career with the Bears, earning four NFL All-Star selections, six All-Pro selections, three NFL championships, and an induction into the NFL's All-Decade Team for the 1930s. Stydahar also served as head coach of the Los Angeles Rams and the Chicago Cardinals, winning the 1951 NFL Championship with the Rams. During his Hall of Fame enshrinement speech, Stydahar thanked his family and friends from his "dear state, West Virginia."


title: West Virginia Mountaineers football

text: Sam Huff, a linebacker, was inducted in 1982. Originally a third round selection by the New York Giants in the 1956 NFL Draft, Huff played for the Giants from 1956–1963 and later for the Washington Redskins from 1964–1969. Huff's football career, let alone his future in the NFL, almost never came to pass, however. As a junior in high school, WVU head coach Art Lewis came to Huff's town to look at another prospect. Luckily for Huff (and for the Mountaineers), Lewis wound up recruiting Sam instead. Fate intervened once more for Huff at the end of his collegiate career, as Giants scout Al DeRogatis came to Morgantown to look at All-American guard Bruce Bosley. DeRogatis instead discovered Huff, proclaiming that "there's another guard here who will be even greater. His name is Sam Huff." Huff became a five-time Pro Bowl selection, a four-time First-Team All-Pro selection, an inductee in the NFL 1950s All-Decade Team, and was named as one of the 70 Greatest Redskins of all-time. Huff was also recognized as the NFL's Top Linebacker in 1959.


title: West Virginia Mountaineers football

text: WVU has produced a total of 198 NFL Draft selections. Of those players selected in the draft, 12 Mountaineers have been selected in the first round.


title: West Virginia Mountaineers football

text: Among the numerous Mountaineers that have participated in the NFL, a total of 32 have received all-star or Pro Bowl recognition.


title: Specific weight

text: Often a source of confusion is that the terms "specific gravity", and less often "specific weight", are also used for relative density. A common symbol for specific weight is , the Greek letter Gamma.


title: Specific weight

text: The specific weight, , of a material is defined as the product of its density, , and the standard gravity, :


title: Specific weight

text: The density of the material is defined as mass per unit volume, typically measured in kg/m. The standard gravity is acceleration due to gravity, usually given in m/s, and on Earth usually taken as .


title: Specific weight

text: Unlike density, specific weight is not a fixed property of a material. It depends on the value of the gravitational acceleration, which varies with location. Pressure may also affect values, depending upon the bulk modulus of the material, but generally, at moderate pressures, has a less significant effect than the other factors.


title: Specific weight

text: In fluid mechanics, specific weight represents the force exerted by gravity on a unit volume of a fluid. For this reason, units are expressed as force per unit volume (e.g., N/m or lbf/ft). Specific weight can be used as a characteristic property of a fluid.


title: Specific weight

text: Specific weight can be used in civil engineering and mechanical engineering to determine the weight of a structure designed to carry certain loads while remaining intact and remaining within limits regarding deformation.


title: Factions of Halo

text: The "Halo" video game and media franchise takes place in a fictional science fiction universe. In the distant past, a race known as the Forerunners fought the parasitic Flood. The Forerunners ultimately activate weapons of mass destruction, the Halo Array, in order to starve the Flood and stop the threat. By the 26th century, humanity, led by the United Nations Space Command (UNSC), is caught in a war with an alien coalition known as the Covenant. The Covenant worship the Forerunners as deities, mistakenly believing that the Halos are a tool of salvation, not destruction. The Flood, meanwhile, escape the confines of Halo and threaten to spread across the galaxy again.


title: Factions of Halo

text: A large portion of the series' success lies in the creation of a believable world, and Bungie reinforced the fictional factions the player interacts with via a lengthy design process with the release of each game. The overall design of each faction was slowly developed before the release of the first game in the series, "", and continually refined in later games' development. Reception of "Halo"s factions has generally been positive. The Covenant were praised by reviewers as exciting and challenging enemies, and later games featuring the Forerunner Prometheans as enemies were criticized as not living up to the same standard. Characters, weapons, and vehicles of all the factions have been released as toys or promotional materials.


title: Factions of Halo

text: Throughout much of Bungie's development of "", very little concrete story details had been developed for the story campaign, and what enemies the player character would face. Writer Joseph Staten and other Bungie staff came up with the idea of a coalition of alien races, subsequently deciding that the faction would be motivated by religion. Early in the game's development, environmental artist Paul Russel solidified the concept of three "schools" of "Halo" architecture for the main factions in the game – the humans of the United Nations Space Command (UNSC), the alien alliance of the Covenant, and the Forerunner structures on which most of the game takes place. For future humanity, the artists and developers settled on a functional, industrial look. Art Director Marcus Lehto said that the artists examined current technology trends and tried to extrapolate what future technology would look like. Designs were molded by the desire for building a realized and distinctive feel for the human ships and buildings, but also to make the areas fun to play in. For example, the design team wanted a cramped, claustrophobic feel for the human ship levels in "Combat Evolved". Ron Cobb's work on "Aliens" informed some of the design for a "lived in" appearance. In comparison to the visions of dystopia common in many other science fiction works, the cities and buildings of Earth which were first shown in "Halo 2" were clean and functional, with parks and attractive structures. Character design for the UNSC was more straightforward, with uniforms based on existing military outfits, ranks, and insignia. All aspects of the game were designed to feel believable and cultivate suspension of disbelief.


title: Factions of Halo

text: For the Covenant, the team decided on "sleek and shiny", with reflective surfaces, organic shapes, and use of purples. According to art director Marcus Lehto, the principle designs for the faction came from environmental artist Paul Russel, while concept artist Shi Kai Wang was instrumental in developing the look of the various races within the Covenant. Armor color was used to denote ranks of enemies.


title: Factions of Halo

text: Like the character designs, Covenant technology, architecture, and design continually changed throughout development, occasionally for practical reasons as well as aesthetics. According to Eric Arroyo, the Covenant cruiser "Truth and Reconciliation", which plays a major role in "Halo: Combat Evolved", was to be boarded by the player by a long ramp. However due to technical considerations of having a fully textured ship so close to the player, the designers came up with a "gravity lift", which allowed the ship to be farther away (thus not requiring as much processing power for detail) as well as adding a "visually interesting" component of Covenant technology.


title: Factions of Halo

text: Due to "Halo" being a first-person shooter, significant emphasis was put into the design of the game's weaponry. The chief designer for human weapons was Robert McLees, who at the time of "Combat Evolved"s development was the only one at Bungie with knowledge of firearms. McLees wanted to make sure that the weapons looked "cool", but were also grounded by real-world physics and considerations. The game designers also wanted items that would be recognizable to players, yet futuristic-looking enough to plausibly exist in "Halo"s 2552. Occasionally, technical restraints forced design changes; the submachine gun introduced in "Halo 2" originally featured a transparent magazine which allowed players to see the caseless ammo feed into the gun, but it proved too ambitious given the time and hardware available.


title: Factions of Halo

text: Vehicles play an important role in the "Halo" games, and so vehicles were also given a long development stage. The UNSC's vehicles were designed to be functional and utilitarian. Their use of wheels also led players to feel that they were more fun to drive. The addition of the Mongoose ATV made headlines, after being cut from "Halo 2". The original Warthog was considered a fan favorite.


title: Factions of Halo

text: Paul Russel is considered the architect of the Forerunners' design. In an interview, Russel stated that creating the Forerunners' "visual language" was a tough process which only came together "like five months away" from the game's completion; much of the design was finalized on a single level, "The Silent Cartographer", which features both exterior Forerunner structures as well as deep interior chasms. Concept artist Eddie Smith is also credited with helping hone the Forerunners' direction, and said that he started work by reading the game's mission synopsis. "I knew what human and Covenant architecture looked like, so I tried to make the Forerunner concepts different", Smith said. The result was a sleek angular design which was distinct from the curves of the Covenant's architecture and the functional human designs. For "Halo 2", designers wanted to refine and elaborate on the Forerunner design, without abandoning the style set by Russel; environment artist Frank Capezzuto found that looking at the Forerunner structures as sculptures rather than buildings helped to drive the designs for "Halo 2".


title: Factions of Halo

text: The art team also spent a large amount of time on Covenant weaponry, in order to make them suitably alien yet still recognizable to players. At the same time, the designers wanted all aspects of Covenant technology, especially the vehicles, to act plausibly. In contrast to human weapons firing projectiles, many of the Covenant's weaponry are depicted as firing plasma. A few of the Covenant's weapons are not plasma-based, including the Needler, which fires razor-sharp pink needles capable of homing at organic foes. A weapons expert noted parallels between the Needler and ancient Greek Amazons painting their daggers pink as a psychological weapon. Bungie designed the majority of Covenant technology to mirror the aesthetic of the Elites; the exteriors are sleek and graceful, with a more angular and complex core underneath hinting at the Forerunner origins of the technology.


title: Factions of Halo

text: The Forerunners were a powerful race that formed a galaxy-wide empire tens of thousands of years before the events of the main game.


title: Factions of Halo

text: According to the official backstory to the series, the Forerunners came to power after they successfully rebelled against their creators, the Precursors. To ensure that the Precursors will never again threaten their existence, the Forerunners exterminated them, except for one imprisoned which they called the Primordial. At the height of their power the Forerunners formed a galaxy-wide empire for more than 100,000 years before the events of the main "Halo" story arc. The Forerunners successfully usurped the Mantle – protection of all life in the galaxy – from the Precursors.


title: Factions of Halo

text: Much later, they were threatened by the parasitic Flood. The Forerunners took action, but the parasite was unstoppable. A group of Forerunners conceived a plan to stop the Flood once and for all, building an installation known as the Ark that created seven ring-shaped megastructures called "Halos". The Halo Array, when activated, would destroy all sentient life within range – depriving the Flood of its food.


title: Factions of Halo

text: After waiting as long as they could, and traveling the galaxy to collect species from planets, which would later be used to "re-seed" the galaxy, the Forerunners activated the Array and vanished. Although the parasite's spread across the galaxy was halted, the Forerunners paid a terrible price as they, and all sentient life capable of sustaining the Flood in the galaxy, were annihilated. The Covenant worship the Forerunners as deities and relentlessly search for Forerunner relics. The reason for the Forerunners' disappearance is revealed in "Halo: Combat Evolved" when the artificial intelligence Cortana enters one of the Halo's computer networks and learns the true purpose of the Halos. In the "Halo: Fractures" short story "Promises to Keep", it's revealed that the surviving Forerunners exiled themselves from the galaxy after reseeding life which took about a century.


title: Factions of Halo

text: Additionally, the Forerunners created battle constructs known as "Prometheans", robotic AIs armed with Forerunner weapons to defend areas such as the shield world of Requiem.


title: Factions of Halo

text: The Forerunners also created highly advanced AIs known as Contender-class AI which were numerous AI "minds" working in synchrony, thus giving it intellectual properties greater than any other AI. The Forerunners also created Sentinels which are machines designed for the defense, construction, and maintenance of Forerunner facilities. Sentinels are also used in Flood outbreaks since their "beam" is useful as it not only destroys dead combat forms, it disintegrates them to prevent reanimation.


title: Factions of Halo

text: Another invention of the Forerunners depicted in the games and novels are artificial planets known as shield worlds. First appearing in "", shield worlds are constructs designed to act as bomb shelters from the Halo Array. Generally, they are made up of an outer terrestrial planet with the shield world contained inside in the form of a micro-Dyson sphere.


title: Factions of Halo

text: The Halo Array is a group of fictional megastructures and superweapons in the "Halo" science-fiction franchise, consisting of ringworlds known as Halos built by a structure known as the Ark. They are referred to as "Installations" by their artificial intelligence caretakers, and were created by an ancient race known as the Forerunners. The series' alien antagonists, the Covenant, refer to the Halos as the "Sacred Rings", believing them to form part of a greater religious prophecy known as "The Great Journey". In the games' stories, the Forerunners built the Halo Array to contain and study the Flood, an infectious alien parasite. The rings act together as a weapon of last resort; when fired, they kill all sentient life in the galaxy capable of falling prey to the Flood, thereby starving the parasite of its food. The battle to prevent their activation forms the crux of the plot progression for the first "Halo" trilogy of games.


title: Factions of Halo

text: While the Halos are ring-shaped megastructures similar to those in Larry Niven's novel "Ringworld" (1970), they are far smaller, with radii of . The Halos are closer in proportion to the Orbitals of Iain M. Banks in shape and design, or to a Bishop Ring, an actual proposed space habitat first explained by Forrest Bishop. As seen in the games, Halo installations feature a metallic exterior but an inner surface filled with an atmosphere, water, plant life, and animal life. What appears to be docking ports and windows dot the exterior surface, suggesting that a fraction of the ring structure itself is hollow and used for maintenance, living, and power generation.


title: Factions of Halo

text: Before the title of the game that would become "Halo: Combat Evolved" was announced, while development was in its early stages, the megastructure on which the game took place was a massive, hollowed-out planet called "Solipsis". As ideas evolved, the planet became a Dyson Sphere, and then a Dyson Ring. Some Bungie staffers felt the change to a ringworld was "ripping off Larry Niven", according to Bungie artist Paul Russel. Bungie employee Frank O'Connor wrote in a post on Bungie that "the specific accusation that we swiped the idea of a ring-shaped planet wholesale is not accurate", explaining that Bungie used a ringworld because "it's cool and therefore the type of thing a Forerunner civilization would build." The immense scale of the Dyson megastructures was shrunk for the Halos, as artist Mark Goldsworthy noted that they wanted players to be able to see the ring stretching into the sky and behold the scale of the ringworlds.


title: Factions of Halo

text: Physicist Kevin Grazier calculated that a Halo constructed using conventional steel alloys and composed of 50% empty space would result in a total mass of 1.7x10 kg. The amount of material required to build such a ring would be akin to the total material available in the asteroid belt.


title: Factions of Halo

text: The Flood (originally called the shaping sickness) is a parasite which is driven by a desire to infect, kill, or consume all sentient life it encounters. The Flood first appears in "", when the Covenant release some captured specimens from stasis on Installation 04; the parasite spreads and threatens to escape the ring, until the Master Chief destabilizes the installation with a massive explosion coming from the "Pillar of Autumn". It is also later found in "Halo 2" on Installation 05 along with the Gravemind, an enormous tentacled creature that acts as the parasite's central intelligence. In "Halo 3", the Flood reaches the Halo Ark using the giant Covenant holy city "High Charity". Master Chief then defeats the Flood once again by firing the incomplete replacement for Installation 04, which damages but does not destroy the Ark. The Gravemind, present on the replacement ring when it explodes from the strain, accepts defeat, but insists that it will only slow, not stop, the Flood.


title: Factions of Halo

text: In the "Halo Wars 2" expansion pack "Awakening the Nightmare", some of the Flood is revealed to have survived the firing of Installation 08 in the ruins of the Covenant holy city "High Charity". Recognizing the danger, the Ark's defenses erected a containment shield around the ruins to successfully quarantine the surviving Flood inside the city. However, Banished forces, believing the Flood to just be another of the Covenant's lies, deactivate the Ark's defense systems and breach the containment shield, releasing the Flood upon the Ark once again. The Flood forms a Proto-Gravemind which grows quickly and becomes dangerously close to becoming a new Gravemind. However, the Banished reactivate the Ark's defenses and kill the Proto-Gravemind. With the Proto-Gravemind dead, the Banished and the Ark's Sentinels are able to contain the new Flood outbreak and seal off "High Charity" once again.


title: Factions of Halo

text: The Flood were added early in the game development stage of "Halo: Combat Evolved", and life of Halo was specifically tailored to increasing the surprise of the Flood's sudden appearance, halfway through the first game. At one point, Halo featured large numbers of terrestrial dinosaur-like creatures, but Bungie felt the presence of other native species would dilute the impact of the Flood and removed them.


title: Factions of Halo

text: The United Nations Space Command (UNSC) is the main faction of future humanity and is the main protagonist of the original Halo trilogy. The UNSC was formed in the mid-2160s under the United Nations and would later become the military arm of the Unified Earth Government (UEG). According to "Halo" story architects Frank O'Conner and Robert McLees, during the 26th-century events of "Halo", the UNSC exercises considerably more power than its civilian counterpart.


title: Factions of Halo

text: Before the beginnings of the war with the Covenant, humanity was in turmoil, with the remote colonies fighting for independence from the UEG. To help quell the revolts, the UNSC commissioned the highly classified SPARTAN Project, responsible for the development of four generations of unique, highly trained infantry, collectively called Spartans, who operate in powered armor known as MJOLNIR. The Spartans undertook classified missions against rebels and insurrectionists. When the Covenant began destroying the outer colonies, these Spartans became humanity's best hope against the technological superiority of the Covenant.


title: Factions of Halo

text: One of the UNSC's unclassified special forces units are the "Orbital Drop Shock Troopers" or ODSTs. They are also called 'Helljumpers' after their motto "Feet first into hell." They specialize in orbital combat insertions via Single-Occupant Exoatmospheric Insertion Vehicles (SOEIVs) jettisoned from ships in low orbit. As characterized by author William C. Dietz in "", the future corps shares thematic similarities to the present-day United States Army.


title: Factions of Halo

text: The most important Special Force unit in the game is the SPARTAN project, more importantly, the second generation of Spartans within the project – a group of specially trained supersoldiers. John-117, the main playable character in the main trilogy, is one of the few known surviving Spartan-IIs. The UNSC has an army, which serves as a ground defensive force within the UNSC military.


title: Factions of Halo

text: The UNSC also field various ground vehicles for combat; among these is a general purpose scout 'jeep' dubbed the "Warthog" or simply the "'Hog", a working replica of which was created by special effects company Weta Workshop for a series of shorts by director Neill Blomkamp. This vehicle had fully functioning four-wheel steering, machine-gun, digital displays, and air-bags.


title: Factions of Halo

text: The initialisation "UNSC" has occasionally been confused with the United Nations Security Council. For example, on May 24, 2012, a BBC news report on the UN used the "Halo" UNSC logo, as opposed to the United Nations Security Council logo, as a background image.


title: Factions of Halo

text: The Covenant is a theocratic collection of alien races, existing as a massive empire for thousands of years. In many "Halo" video games, they fill an antagonistic role. The alliance worships an ancient alien race known as the Forerunners and search for their deities' relics. The novel "" reveals that the Covenant's luminaries, devices which search for Forerunner relics, discovered a massive cache of the relics on a human colony, Harvest. The Forerunner artificial intelligence Mendicant Bias awakens and reveals to three Covenant politicians that the "relics" are in fact the humans themselves – Bias identifies them as descendants of his makers. Worried that the discovery of such a secret would destroy the Covenant, the High Prophet leadership instead directs the Covenant to destroy humanity and its United Nations Space Command (UNSC) as an affront to the deities. This leads to the search for Halo, an ancient weapon designed by the Forerunners to attempt to contain the Flood which was destroyed by the UNSC in "Halo: Combat Evolved". In "Halo 2", the Covenant splits apart in civil war when the Elites learn of their leaders' treachery; the Elites eventually ally with humanity to stop the rest of the Covenant from activating the Halos in an attempt to follow the Forerunners into liberation. In "Halo 3", the Covenant is completely destroyed during the battle on the Ark by the joint forces of the Elites and the UNSC.


title: Factions of Halo

text: Prior to the events of "Halo 4", some of the Elites who had left the Covenant and fought against it, form a new faction led by Jul 'Mdama. This smaller faction self proclaims to be a new "Covenant", existing as an entirely different organization. Jul 'Mdama's faction serves as an antagonist against the UNSC and is defeated in "Halo 5: Guardians".


title: Factions of Halo

text: Covenant society is depicted as a caste system composed of different species. Bungie's artists looked at live animals and films for inspiration; as a result, the species within the Covenant bear simian, reptilian, avian, and ursine characteristics. Concept artist Shi Kai Wang focused on making each enemy seem appropriate to its role in gameplay. The species within the Covenant include:


title: Factions of Halo

text: Other members of the Covenant include insectoid Drones (Yanme'e); the animators found the creatures challenging, as they had to be animated to walk, run, crawl, or fly on multiple surfaces. Old concept art from "Combat Evolved" was repurposed in influencing the Drone's final shape, which took cues from cockroaches, grasshoppers, and wasps. Cut from "Combat Evolved" were floating support workers known as Engineers (Huragok), actually constructed machines rather than organic creatures. They later made appearances in "Halo Wars" and "", as well as various novels.


title: Factions of Halo

text: With subsequent games, the Covenant and their look were changed or refined to account for increased graphic hardware or gameplay needs. In "Halo 3", the Brutes became the primary enemy, and they were heavily redesigned. Concept artists took inspiration from rhinoceroses and gorillas, and armored them with buckles and clothing to represent a different aesthetic look compared to the Covenant. Weaponry was designed to reflect the Brute's "souls" distilled to its purest form – conveyed by dangerous shapes, harsh colors, and objects that looked "dangerous to be around". The more seasoned the Brute, the more ornate clothing and helmets; the armor was designed to convey a culture and tradition to the species, and emphasize their mass and power. Designs for "Halo 3" took cues from ancient Greek Spartans. Character animators recorded intended actions for the new Brutes in a padded room at Bungie. A new addition to the Brute artificial intelligence was a pack mentality; leader Brutes direct large-scale actions simultaneously, such as throwing grenades towards a player.


title: Factions of Halo

text: "" served as a prequel to "Halo: Combat Evolved", and creative director Marcus Lehto pushed for the team to revamp the Covenant. The aliens' translated English was replaced with untranslated, guttural alien sounds, and their look and weaponry was redesigned. The goal was to make the Covenant intimidating and more alien to players. "" also featured a Jackel variant called a skirmisher that had two small shields on each of it's arms and dodged things easily. These new enemies later were included in "".


title: Factions of Halo

text: The Covenant serve as one of a number of religious allusions in "Halo". Their name refers to sacred agreements between the people of Israel and their God in Jewish and Christian tradition, and could be used to indicate the attitude of superiority complex the aliens have to the inferior and sacrilegious humans. The Covenant's ships bear names referring to elements of Judeo-Christian religion. A review of religions and religious material in video games noted that the Covenant's invented religion had many similarities to those in similar games, and would likely be called a cult in the real world. The thematic parallels of religious zealots fighting an American military metaphor was not lost on Microsoft's content review team, who forced a name change of the holy warrior "Dervish" to Arbiter before the release of "Halo 2". Theologian P.C.J.M. Paulissen notes that while on the surface the "Halo" games present a conflict between rational humans and religious alien fanaticism, the comparison is complicated by the technical superiority of the Covenant (they wield energy weapons compared to primitive human ballistics) and the games seem to reject the idea science and religion are rigidly disconnected.


title: Factions of Halo

text: A mercenary organization that splintered off from the Covenant, the Banished, is led by the Brute known as Atriox. They rose to power after Atriox led other disgruntled members of the Jiralhanae species to rebel against their Sangheili masters. The newly formed “Banished” started off as pirates, conducting surgical strikes against the Covenant and scavenging for resources and supplies. Composed of various alien mercenaries, Atriox welcomes competent members from all species into the Banished, including humans who have joined. They first appear in "Halo Wars 2", after they invade the Forerunner installation known as the Ark, later coming in conflict with the crew of the presumed-lost UNSC ship "Spirit of Fire". The Banished subsequently appear in the novels "Halo Shadows of Reach" and "Halo Divine Wind". The Banished return in "Halo Infinite" as an antagonist hostile to humanity's UNSC, under the command of the Brute War Chief Escharum. Throughout the course of the game, the Master Chief battles the Banished across the surface of Halo Installation 07. The Banished seek to control Zeta Halo and ally themselves with the Harbinger who wishes to release her race, the Endless. The Master Chief succeeds in stopping the repair of the ring, killing Escharum and a number of other high-ranking Banished members as well as the Harbinger. However, it's revealed that Atriox, presumed dead early in the conflict, has survived and he locates the Endless.


title: Factions of Halo

text: "Halo" has a variety of affiliated merchandise. A version of the strategy board game Risk was released based on Halo Wars with game pieces being modeled after the UNSC, Covenant, and Flood. A mix of human and Covenant vehicles and weapons were also featured in the Halo ActionClix tabletop game and a series by McFarlane Toys. Game journalists have even noted the similarities between the Warthog and the Hummer HX, which GM denies. The merchandise includes several series of action figures. The first series of figures were created by Joyride Studios, and featured characters, weapons, and vehicles representing all of "Halo"s factions. The task of creating "Halo 3"s action figures fell to McFarlane Toys; in an interview with Bungie, Todd McFarlane stated that the challenge of creating figures for a franchise was that designers had to accommodate and integrate both articulation and attention to detail, "without compromising one or the other too heavily". A total of three series of figurines have since been produced, featuring UNSC, Flood, and Covenant forces. Manufacturer Kotobukiya also produced "high-end statues" for "Halo 3"s debut. Other merchandise based on the weapons of the "Halo" universe include die cast weapons replicas and a set of Covenant weapons used for Laser tag.


title: Factions of Halo

text: "Halo"s universe and the factions in it have been well-received, both from a storytelling point of view and from game play. Gamasutra lauded "Halo"s artificial intelligence. For example, Covenant or Flood forces never spawn in the same places when the player restarts from checkpoints, which gives the player "the sense that the [alien] creatures have things to do besides killing humans". Bungie's goal of making characters behave realistically in the games has led to the behavior of the Covenant, Flood, and Forerunner units being praised in each game of the series. A point of criticism has been the AI of allied UNSC characters; reviewers noted that in "Halo 3", they were often more of a hindrance than help.


title: Factions of Halo

text: The various factions that make up the "Halo" universe were each received differently. The Flood have been alternatively praised as terrifying foes, and lambasted as annoying zombie-like enemies; the literary adaptations of the Flood, particularly their representation in "The Halo Graphic Novel", have been best received.


title: Chibi Maruko-chan

text: The series is set in the former of Irie District (入江町), Shimizu, now part of Shizuoka City, birthplace of its author.


title: Chibi Maruko-chan

text: The first story under the title "Chibi Maruko-chan" was published in the August 1986 edition of the shōjo manga magazine "Ribon". Other semi-autobiographical stories by the author had appeared in "Ribon" and "Ribon Original" in 1984 and 1985, and were included in the first "Chibi Maruko-chan" tankōbon in 1987. The author first began writing and submitting strips in her final year of senior high school, although Shueisha (the publisher of "Ribon" and "Ribon Original") did not decide to run them until over a year later. The author's intent was to write "essays in manga form"; many stories are inspired by incidents from her own life, and some characters are based on her family and friends. The nostalgic, honest and thoughtful tone of the strip led to its becoming popular among a wider audience.


title: Chibi Maruko-chan

text: "Chibi Maruko-chan" was adapted into an anime television series by Nippon Animation, which originally aired on Fuji Television and affiliated TV stations from January 7, 1990 to September 27, 1992. It has also spawned numerous games, animated films and merchandising, as well as a second TV series running from 1995 to the present. Maruko's style and themes are sometimes compared to the classic comic "Sazae-san". In 1989, the manga tied to receive the Kodansha Manga Award for shōjo. As of 2006, the collected volumes of the manga had sold more than 31 million copies in Japan, making it the fifth best-selling shōjo manga ever.


title: Chibi Maruko-chan

text: On April 25, 2020, it was announced that the second series would be suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic. On June 14, 2020, it was announced that it would resume on June 21, 2020.


title: Chibi Maruko-chan

text: The trademark face fault of this series, in reaction to an awkward "don't know what to say" situation (or sometimes, embarrassment) is the sudden appearance of on a character's face, sometimes with an unexplained gust of wind blowing above that character's head.


title: Chibi Maruko-chan

text: The series has a large number and variety of secondary and recurring characters, some inspired by people who Sakura met. Some of them debuted in the anime and others derive from the original manga. Following are descriptions of the main characters and family members that appear frequently in all chapters and episodes.


title: Chibi Maruko-chan

text: The original "Chibi Maruko-chan" manga was serialized in the shōjo-oriented "Ribon Magazine". 14 volumes were published from July 1987 to December 1996, with a 15th volume published in February 2003. In July 2007, a 4-frame version of "Chibi Maruko-chan" was published in every morning edition of several Japanese newspapers such as the Tokyo Shimbun and the Chunichi Shimbun.


title: Chibi Maruko-chan

text: The 16th volume of the manga was published on April 15, 2009 and 17th volume was issued on Dec 25, 2018.


title: Chibi Maruko-chan

text: The 18th volume was issued on Oct 25, 2022. The new manga was produced by Sakura's long-time assistant Botan Kohagi and other assistants at Sakura Production. The volume contains seven new chapters, and are based on stories that Sakura originally created for the Chibi Maruko-chan television anime ٩(＾◡＾)۶


title: Chibi Maruko-chan

text: A spin-off manga by Momoko Sakura titled focuses on the character Kimio Nagasawa on High School, was published on the magazine Shogakkan's "Big Comic Spirits" from January 1993 and May 1995. It was made into an live-action drama, premiering on Tokyo Broadcasting System Television on April 1, 2013.


title: Chibi Maruko-chan

text: A square-headed parody version of manga Chibi Maruko-chan titled was published on Shueisha's Grand Jump magazine from October 19, 2016.


title: Chibi Maruko-chan

text: "Chibi Maruko-chan" originally aired on Fuji Television and affiliated TV stations. 142 episodes were broadcast, from January 1990 to September 1992. Maruko was voiced by Tarako; other voice actors included Kappei Yamaguchi and Hideki Saijo. Original manga author Momoko Sakura wrote the teleplay for most episodes. The first series was directed by Yumiko Suda, animated by Masaaki Yuasa (who later directed "Mind Game" in 2004), while the music was composed by Nobuyuki Nakamura. The series attained a TV viewer rating of 39.9% on October 28, 1990, the highest rating ever attained by an animated TV series in Japan. The outro song "Odoru Ponpokorin" became a hit and was interpreted by several artists including the KinKi Kids and Captain Jack. The series was exported throughout Asia and was especially popular in Taiwan. In addition, 65 episodes were dubbed into Arabic (called Maruko Assagheera, which means Little Maruko), where it garnered attention from people of all ages. It also aired in Germany with the same title as the original and was broadcast by RTL II, Super RTL and Jetix. It aired weekdays on Nick India in India.


title: Chibi Maruko-chan

text: A second series debuted on Fuji Television and affiliated TV stations in January 1995, airing on Sundays in the 6:00 pm time slot, before "Sazae-san" at 6:30 pm. The series is directed by Jun Takagi and Nobuyuki Nakamura, like the first series, composes the music. The majority of the voice actors from the first series reprised their roles. The first 219 episodes were written by Momoko Sakura, however, she had supervised the episode screenplays from episode 220 up until her death in 2018. In Spain, the show is available via VOD on the website of Neox's children's block, Neox Kidz. On TV Japan, which is available in the United States and Canada, the second series (starting with the episodes broadcast in 2009) now broadcasts weekly in Japanese. In Latin America, is distributed by The Japan Foundation, the dub was produced in Mexico and broadcast on several local, public and other private television networks.


title: Chibi Maruko-chan

text: A live action series was shown on Fuji Television in 2006. The series was created to commemorate "Chibi Maruko-chan"'s 15th anniversary and had 3 episodes, each 2 hours. All costumes and hairstyles are faithful to the original manga. A Taiwanese live-action adaptation was also made begin airing on March 13, 2017.


title: Chibi Maruko-chan

text: All the Game Boy titles (which consists of minigames) were developed by KID and published by Takara. The other titles were published by different companies like Namco, Konami, Epoch and Banpresto.


title: Chibi Maruko-chan

text: As part of the project to commemorate the 35th anniversary of the original work, it was announced in October 2021 that the first stage of this work, "Chibi Maruko-chan The Stage", will be produced, scheduled to be performed at the end of 2022. Nelke Planning is in charge of planning and production. In August 2022, it was announced that the title would be "High School Days" and that it would be performed at the Galaxy Theatre from December 15th to December 25th.


title: Crystal Lowe

text: Yan-Kay Crystal Lowe (born Yan-Kay Lo; January 20, 1981) is a Canadian actress, director, and model best known for her scream queen roles in horror films such as "" (2001), "Final Destination 3" (2006), "Black Christmas" (2006), and "" (2007), and as Rita Haywith in Hallmark Channel's "Signed, Sealed, Delivered" television and television film series (2013–2021).


title: Crystal Lowe

text: Lowe was born Yan-Kay Lo (Chinese: 罗艳琪, Yale: "Lòh Yihm Kèih") in Vancouver, British Columbia to a Scottish mother and Chinese father from Hong Kong. When she was young her father moved back to Hong Kong with his family, where they lived for several years. In an interview in 2016, Lowe said that she had wanted to be an actress since the age of five.


title: Crystal Lowe

text: Lowe started her career as a model. Her first acting role was at age 15 was as Nya on an episode of "Stargate SG-1". Lowe went on to guest star in several popular television shows like "Masters of Horror", "Psych", "Supernatural", "", "The L Word", plus many more.


title: Crystal Lowe

text: Lowe's first film role came in 2000 when she was cast in the film "Get Carter". Soon after she was cast as Tiffany in the horror film "". In 2006, Lowe was cast as Ashlyn Halperin in "Final Destination 3". Her next role was as Lauren in the remake of "Black Christmas". Lowe later went on to star as Elena in "".


title: Crystal Lowe

text: Lowe went on to do cameo roles in the films "" and "Good Luck Chuck". In 2008 she was reunited with her "Final Destination 3" co-stars Sam Easton and Amanda Crew in the film "That One Night". Also in 2008, Lowe was cast in supporting roles for the films "", "" and "".


title: Crystal Lowe

text: In 2010, Lowe appeared as Zoe in the film "Hot Tub Time Machine", as Vala in the 9th season of the CW show "Smallville" and as Nina in Sheldon Wilson's horror/thriller film "Killer Mountain". In mid-2011, Lowe was cast as Tina in "A Little Bit Zombie" and as Piper/Peaches in the TV movie "To the Mat". In early 2012, she was cast as Toby Nance, one of the lead characters in the new series "".


title: Crystal Lowe

text: In 2014, Lowe was cast as Rita Haywith in the Hallmark series "Signed, Sealed, Delivered", which aired for one season in 2014 before becoming successive television films. In 2015, she took a role behind the camera, directing the locally produced short film "Becoming Sophie" which was featured at Cannes Short Film Library and L.A. Women's Film Festival.


title: Crystal Lowe

text: In 2017, Lowe played Sarah Albans, the mother of Julian, the main antagonist in the film version of "Wonder", based on the 2012 novel.


title: Crystal Lowe

text: On August 8, 2009, Lowe married Miko Tomasevich at Vancouver's historic Hycroft Manor. She and her husband own Hyde Restaurant in Vancouver, British Columbia.


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: Proposition 13 (officially named the People's Initiative to Limit Property Taxation) is an amendment of the Constitution of California enacted during 1978, by means of the initiative process. The initiative was approved by California voters on June 6, 1978. It was upheld as constitutional by the United States Supreme Court in the case of "Nordlinger v. Hahn", . Proposition 13 is embodied in Article XIII A of the Constitution of the State of California.


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: The most significant portion of the act is the first paragraph, which limits the tax rate for real estate:


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: The proposition decreased property taxes by assessing values at their 1976 value and restricted annual increases of assessed value to an inflation factor, not to exceed 2% per year. It prohibits reassessment of a new base year value except in cases of (a) change in ownership, or (b) completion of new construction. These rules apply equally to all real estate, residential and commercial—whether owned by individuals or corporations.


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: The other significant portion of the initiative is that it requires a two-thirds majority in both legislative houses for future increases of any state tax rates or amounts of revenue collected, including income tax rates. It also requires a two-thirds vote majority in local elections for local governments wishing to increase special taxes. (A "special tax" is a tax devoted specifically to a purpose: e.g. homelessness or road repair; money that does not go into a general fund.)


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: Proposition 13 has been described as California's most famous and influential ballot measure; it received enormous publicity throughout the United States. Passage of the initiative presaged a "taxpayer revolt" throughout the country that is sometimes thought to have contributed to the election of Ronald Reagan to the presidency during 1980. Of 30 anti-tax ballot measures that year, 13 passed.


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: A large contributor to Proposition 13 was the sentiment that older Californians should not be priced out of their homes through high taxes. The proposition has been called the "third rail" (meaning "untouchable subject") of California politics, and it is not popular politically for lawmakers to attempt to change it.


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: Proposition 13 declared property taxes were to be assessed their 1976 value and restricted annual increases of the tax to an inflation factor, not to exceed 2% per year. A reassessment of the property tax can only be made a) when the property ownership changes or b) there is construction done.


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: The state has been given the responsibility of distributing the property tax revenues to local agencies.


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: In addition to decreasing property taxes and changing the role of the state, Proposition 13 also contained language requiring a two-thirds (2/3) majority in both legislative houses for future increases of any state tax rates or amounts of revenue collected, including income tax rates and sales tax rates.


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: Proposition 13 also requires two-thirds (2/3) voter approval for cities, counties, and special districts to impose special taxes. In "Altadena Library District v. Bloodgood", 192 Cal. App. 3d 585 (June 1987), the California Court of Appeal for the Second District determined that the two-thirds (2/3) voter approval requirement for special taxes under Proposition 13 applied to citizens initiatives.


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: There are several theories of the origins of Proposition 13. The evidence for or against these accounts varies.


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: One explanation is that older Californians with fixed incomes had increasing difficulty paying property taxes, which were rising as a result of California's population growth, increasing housing demand, and inflation. Due to severe inflation during the 1970s, reassessments of residential property increased property taxes so much, that some retired people could no longer afford to remain in homes they had purchased long before. An 2006 study published in "Law & Society Review" supported this explanation, reporting that older voters, homeowners, and voters expecting a tax increase were more likely to vote for Proposition 13.


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: Another explanation is Proposition 13 drew its impetus from the 1971 and 1976 California Supreme Court rulings in "Serrano v. Priest", which somewhat equalized California school funding by redistributing local property taxes from wealthy to poor school districts. According to this explanation, property owners in affluent districts perceived that the taxes they paid were no longer benefiting their local schools, and chose to cap their taxes.


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: A problem with this explanation is that the "Serrano" decision and school finance equalization were popular among California voters. While Californians who voted for Proposition 13 were less likely than other voters to support school finance equalization, Proposition 13 supporters were not more likely to oppose the "Serrano" decision, and on average they were typically supportive of both the "Serrano" decision and of school finance equalization.


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: A 2020 study by Joshua Mound published in the "Journal of Policy History" challenged the idea that wealthy property owners' desire to cap their property taxes was the impetus for enacting Proposition 13, instead saying the "tax revolt" was rooted in lower and middle-income Americans' longstanding frustration with unfair and highly regressive tax distributions during the post-World War II decades.


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: The study said pro-growth Kennedy-Johnson “Growth Liberals” cut federal income taxes in the highest brackets in the 1960s while local officials raised regressive state and local taxes, creating a "pocketbook squeeze" that made voters less likely to approve local levies and bonds, which eventually led to the passage of Proposition 13. The study said the tax revolt was not limited to white voters nor associated with rising conservatism associated with the collapse of the "New Deal order" and the election of Ronald Reagan.


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: Another explanation that has been offered is that spending by California's government had increased dramatically during the years prior to 1978, and voters sought to limit further growth. The evidence supporting this explanation is limited, as there have been no studies relating Californians' views on the size and role of government to their views on Proposition 13. It is true that California's government had grown. Between 1973 and 1977, California state and local government expenditures per $1,000 of personal income were 8.2% higher than the national norm. From 1949 to 1979, public sector employment in California outstripped employment growth in the private sector. By 1978, 14.7% of California's civilian work force were state and local government employees, almost double the proportion of the early 1950s.


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: During the early 1960s, there were several scandals in California involving county assessors. These assessors were found rewarding friends and allies with artificially low assessments, with tax bills to match. These scandals led to the passage of Assembly Bill 80 (AB 80) in 1966, which imposed standards to hold assessments to market value. The return to market value in the wake of AB 80 could easily represent a mid-double-digit percentage increase in assessment for many homeowners. As a result, a large number of California homeowners experienced an immediate and drastic rise in valuation, simultaneous with rising tax rates on that assessed value, only to be told that the taxed monies would be redistributed to distant communities. Cynicism about the favoritism of the tax system towards the wealthy and well-connected persisted into the 1970s. The ensuing anger started to form into a backlash against property taxes which coalesced around Howard Jarvis, a former newspaperman and appliance manufacturer, turned taxpayer activist in retirement.


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: Howard Jarvis and Paul Gann were the most vocal and visible advocates of Proposition 13. Officially named the People's Initiative to Limit Property Taxation, and known popularly as the Jarvis-Gann Amendment, Proposition 13 was listed on the ballot through the California ballot initiative process, a provision of the California Constitution that allows a proposed law or constitutional amendment to be offered to voters if advocates collect a sufficient number of signatures on a petition. Proposition 13 passed with roughly two-thirds of those who voted in favor and with the participation of around two-thirds of registered voters. After passage, it became article XIII A of the California Constitution.


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: Under Proposition 13, the annual real estate tax on a parcel of property is limited to 1% of its assessed value. This "assessed value" may be increased only by a maximum of 2% per year until, and unless, the property has a change of ownership. At the time of the change in ownership the low assessed value may be reassessed to complete current market value that will produce a new base year value for the property, but future assessments are likewise restricted to the 2% annual maximum increase of the new base year value.


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: The property may be reassessed under certain conditions other than a change of ownership, such as when additions or new construction occur. The assessed value is also subject to reduction if the market value of the property declines below its assessed value, such as during a real estate slump. Reductions of property valuation were not provided for by Proposition 13 itself, but were made possible by the passage of Proposition 8 (Senate Constitutional Amendment No. 67) during 1978 that amended Proposition 13. Such a real estate slump and downward reassessments occurred during 2009 when the California State Board of Equalization announced an estimated reduction of property tax base year values due to negative inflation. The property tax in California is an ad valorem tax meaning that the tax assessed generally increases and decreases with the value of the property.


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: In the year after Proposition 13 was passed, property tax revenue to local governments declined by roughly 60% statewide. However, by 2003, the inflation adjusted property tax collected by local governments exceeded the pre-1978 levels, and has continued to increase.


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: In 2009, the advocacy group Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association estimated that Proposition 13 had reduced taxes paid by California taxpayers by an aggregate $528 billion.


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: Other estimates show that Proposition 13 may not have reduced California's overall per-capita tax burden or State spending. The think tank Tax Foundation reported that in 1978, Californians had the third highest tax burden as a proportion of state income (tax-per-capita divided by income-per-capita) of 12.4% ($3,300 tax per capita, inflation adjusted). By 2012, it had fallen slightly to the sixth highest rate, 10.9%, ($4,100 tax per capita, inflation adjusted).


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: California has the highest marginal income and capital gains tax rate and is in the top ten highest corporate tax and sales tax rates nationally. In 2016, California had the 17th-highest per-capita (per-person) property tax revenue in the country at $1,559, up from 31st in 1996. In 2019, WalletHub applied California's statewide effective property tax rate of 0.77% to the state median home market value of $443,400; the annual property taxes of $3,414 on the median home value was the 9th-highest in the United States.


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: Proposition 13 sets the assessed value of properties at the time of purchase (known as an acquisition value system), with a possible 2% annual assessment increase. As a result, properties of equal value can have a great amount of variation in their assessed value, even if they are next to each other. The disparity grows when property prices appreciate by more than 2% a year. The Case–Shiller housing index shows prices in Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Francisco appreciated 170% from 1987 (the start of available data) to 2012 while the 2% cap only allowed a 67% increase in taxes on homes that were not sold during this 26-year period.


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: A 1993 report from the joint University of California and State of California research program, California Policy Seminar (now the California Policy Research Center), said that a property tax system based on acquisition value links property tax liability to ability to pay and has a progressive impact on the tax structure, based on income. It said that a revenue-neutral Los Angeles County reform which raises all assessments to true market value and lowers the property tax rate would harm elderly and low-income households.


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: The think tank Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) considers property tax caps like Proposition 13 poorly targeted and instead advocates "circuit breaker" caps or homestead exemptions to levy property taxes based on ability to pay; yet in 2018, ITEP ranked California's tax code as the most progressive in the United States, in part due to its high marginal income and capital gains rates. Since wealth is associated with ownership of "intangible" assets like stocks, bonds, or business equity, which are exempt from wealth taxes, ITEP says regressive state tax distributions that rely on property taxes on real property can worsen inequality, and that of all US states in 2018, California's tax code reduced inequality the most.


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: By comparing California over the period 1970 to 2000 with other states, (using data from the US Census Bureau, not state or county-level property records)


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: Wasi and White (2005) estimated that Proposition 13 caused homeowners to increase the duration of time spent in a given home by 9% (1.04 years), and renters to increase their tenure by 18% (0.79 years).


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: They also estimated that this effect was more pronounced in the coastal cities, with the increase in tenancy by owner-occupiers in the Bay Area being predicted at 28% (3.0 years), Los Angeles 21% (2.3 years), and Fresno 7% (0.77 years).


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: They speculate that renters may have longer tenure due to less turnover of owner-occupied housing to move into.


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: A 2016 report from the California Legislative Analyst's Office found that property tax revenue to local governments was similarly volatile before and after the passage of Proposition 13. While Proposition 13 stabilized the base, prior to Proposition 13, governments would adjust the rate annually to counteract changes to the base.


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: According to the California Building Industry Association, construction of a median priced house results in a slight positive fiscal impact, as opposed to the position that housing does not "pay its own way". The trade association argues that this is because new homes are assessed at the value when they are first sold. Additionally, due to the higher cost of new homes, the trade association claims that new residents are more affluent and may provide more sales tax revenues and use less social services of the host community.


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: Others argue that the real reason for the claimed negative effects is lack of trust for elected officials to spend the public's money wisely. Business improvement districts are one means by which property owners have chosen to tax themselves for additional government services. Property owners find that these targeted levies are more palatable than general taxes.


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: Proposition 13 alters the balance of the housing market because it provides disincentives for selling property, in favor of remaining at the current property and modifying or transferring to family members to avoid a new, higher property tax assessment.


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: Proposition 13 reduces property tax revenue for municipalities in California. They are forced to rely more on state funding and therefore may lose autonomy and control. The amount of taxes available to the municipality in any given year largely depends on the number of property transfers taking place. Yet since existing property owners have an incentive to remain in their property and not sell, there are fewer property transfers under this type of property tax system.


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: California also has high rates of migrants from other countries and states, which has contributed to more demand for housing, and it has low amounts of moderately priced housing. The different tax treatment can make real estate more valuable to the current owner than to any potential buyer, so selling it often makes no economic sense.


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: Owners of commercial real estate benefited under the original rules of Proposition 13: If a corporation owning commercial property (such as a shopping mall) was sold or merged, but the property stayed technically deeded to the corporation, ownership of the property could effectively have changed without triggering Proposition 13's reassessment provisions. These rules were subsequently changed; under current law, a change of control or ownership of a legal entity causes a reassessment of its real property as well as the real property of entities that it controls.


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: The application to commercial and rental property can lead to an advantage and profit margin for incumbent individuals or corporations who purchased property at a time when prices were low.


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: Some businesses have exploited a property transfer loophole in Proposition 13 implementing statutes created by the California Legislature that define what constitutes a change in property ownership. To take advantage of this loophole, businesses only have to make sure that no partnership exceeds the 50% mark in control in order to avoid a reassessment. The Legislature could close this loophole with a 2/3 vote. In 2018, the California Board of Equalization estimated that closing this loophole would raise up to $269 million annually in new tax revenue. There have been several legislative attempts to close the loophole, none of which have been successful.


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: Proponents of split roll have said the intent of Proposition 13 was to protect residential property taxes from spiking and say the broad application of Proposition 13 to commercial property is a loophole while opponents say voters deliberately sought to extend Proposition 13 protections to commercial property by rejecting a split roll promoted by Jerry Brown in 1978 (Proposition 8 on the same ballot), with a vote of 53-47%, and instead voted for Proposition 13 with nearly 65% of the vote. A "Los Angeles Times" article published shortly following the passage of Proposition 13 supported the latter interpretation, stating: "There is no question that the voters knew exactly what they were doing. Indeed, The Los Angeles Times-Channel 2 News Survey, in which almost 2,500 voters filled out questionnaires as they left the polls Tuesday, revealed that Propositions 8 [the split roll alternative] and 13 were seen by most voters as mutually exclusive alternatives, even though it was entirely possible for voters to play it safe by voting for both measures. Among those who voted for Proposition 13, only one in five also voted for Proposition 8, while Proposition 8 was endorsed by fully 91% of those who voted "no" on Proposition 13. Proposition 13 was advertised as a stronger tax relief measure than Proposition 8. That is exactly how the voters saw it, and that is exactly what they wanted."


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: Local governments in California now use imaginative strategies to maintain or increase revenue due to Proposition 13 and the attendant loss of property tax revenue (which formerly went to cities, counties, and other local agencies). For instance, many California local governments have recently sought voter approval for special taxes such as parcel taxes for public services that used to be paid for entirely or partially from property taxes imposed before Proposition 13 became law. Provision for such taxes was made by the 1982 Community Facilities Act (more commonly known as Mello-Roos). Sales tax rates have also increased from 6% (pre-Proposition 13 level) to 7.25% and higher in some local jurisdictions.


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: In 1991, the Supreme Court of California ruled in "Rider v. County of San Diego" that a San Diego County sales tax to fund jail and courthouse construction was unconstitutional. The court ruled that because the tax money was targeted towards specific programs rather than general spending, it counted as a "special tax" under Proposition 13 and required approval by two-thirds of the voters, whereas the tax had passed with a simple majority.


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: The imposition of these special taxes and fees was a target of California Proposition 218 ("Right to Vote on Taxes Act") which passed in 1996. It constitutionally requires voter approval for local government taxes and some nontax levies such as benefit assessments on real property and certain property-related fees and charges.


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: Proposition 13 disproportionately affects coastal metropolitan areas, such as San Francisco and Los Angeles, where housing prices are higher, relative to inland communities with lower housing prices. According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, more research would show whether benefits of Proposition 13 outweigh the redistribution of tax base and overall cost in lost tax revenue.


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: Local governments have become more dependent on state funds, which has increased state power over local communities. The state provides "block grants" to cities to provide services, and bought out some facilities that locally administer state-mandated programs. "The Economist" argued in 2011 that "for all its small government pretensions, Proposition 13 ended up centralizing California's finances, shifting them from local to state government."


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: Due to the reduction in revenue generated from property tax, local governments have become more dependent on sales taxes for general revenue funds. Some maintain that this trend resulted in the "fiscalization of land use", meaning that land use decisions are influenced by the ability of a new development to generate revenue. Proposition 13 has increased the incentive for local governments to attract new commercial developments, such as big box retailers and car dealerships instead of residential housing developments, because of commercial development's ability to generate revenue through sales tax and business licenses tax. This may discourage growth of other sectors and job types that may provide better opportunities for residents. In terms of public services, office and retail development are further incentivized because they do not cost the local governments as much as residential developments. Additionally, cities have decreased services and increased fees to compensate for the shortfall, with particularly high impact fees levied on developers to impose the cost of the additional services and infrastructure that new developments will require. These costs are typically shifted to the building's buyer, who may be unaware of the thousands in fees included with the building's cost.


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: California's K-12 public schools, which during the 1960s had been ranked nationally as among the best, deteriorated substantially in many surveys of student achievement, according to a 2005 RAND study.


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: Some disputed the attribution of the decline to Proposition 13's role in the change to state financing of public schools, because schools financed mostly by property taxes were declared unconstitutional (the variances in funding between lower and higher income areas being deemed to violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution) in "Serrano vs. Priest", and Proposition 13 was then passed partially as a result of that case. California's spending per pupil was the same as the national average until about 1985, when it began decreasing, which resulted in another referendum, Proposition 98, that requires a certain percentage of the state's budget to be directed towards public education.


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: Prior to implementation of Proposition 13, the state of California saw significant increases in property tax revenue collection "with the share of state and local revenues derived from property taxes increasing from 34% at the turn of the decade to 44% in 1978 (Schwartz 1998)." Proposition 13 caused a sharp decrease in state and local tax collection in its first year.


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: One measure of K-12 public school spending is the percentage of personal income that a state spends on education. From a peak of about 4.5% for the nation overall, and 4.0% for California, both peaking in the early 1970s, the nation overall as well as California spent declining percentages on public education in the decade from 1975 to 1985.


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: For the longer period of 1970–2008, California had always spent a lower percentage than the rest of the nation on education.


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: UCSD Economics Professor Julian Betts stated in a 2010 interview: "What all this means for spending is that starting around 1978-1979 we saw a sharp reduction in spending on schools. We fell compared to other states dramatically, and we still haven't really caught up to other states." From 1977 up until 2010, in California there had been a steady growth of class sizes compared to the national average, "which have been decreasing since 1970." During the 1970s, school spending per student was almost equal to the national average. Using discount rate, "measured in 1997-1998 dollars, California spent about $100 more per capita on its public schools in 1969-1970 than did the rest of the country." From 1981 to 1982 up until 2000, California had consistently spent less per student than the rest of the U.S., as demonstrated by data collected by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis and by the Public Policy Institute of California. This resulted in increased pupil-to-teacher ratios in K-12 public schools in California. Professor Betts observed in 2010 that "pupil-teacher ratios start to skyrocket in the years immediately after 1978, and a huge gap opens up between pupil-teacher ratios here and in the rest of the country, and we still haven't recovered from that."


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: California's voters would approve higher income and capital gains tax rates on the state's wealthiest residents to increase K-12 school funding in subsequent years: voters approved tax increases with Proposition 30 in 2012 (which was extended to 2030 with 2016 California Proposition 55), raising tax rates on income and capital gains over $250,000 for single filers and $500,000 for joint filers, with most of the resultant revenue going to schools. These measures significantly closed the K-12 spending gap between California and the national average. Pupil-teacher ratios decreased since the passage of Proposition 30, and according to a National Education Association survey, California had the second-highest starting teacher salary among the 50 states in 2018. In addition to the "Serrano v. Priest" decision which equalized school funding between school districts, in 2013, California lawmakers created the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF), providing greater resources to school districts with student populations having higher needs, being determined by the rate of children in poverty or foster care and the rate of English language learners in the district, and adding an additional 20% or more in "supplemental funding" to disadvantaged school districts.


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: Proposition 13 is consistently popular among California's likely voters, 64% of whom were homeowners as of 2017. A 2018 survey from the Public Policy Institute of California found that 57% of Californians say that Proposition 13 is mostly a good thing, while 23% say it is mostly a bad thing. 65% of likely voters say it has been mostly a good thing, as do: 71% of Republicans, 55% of Democrats, and 61% of independents; 54% of people age 18 to 34, 52% of people age 35 to 54, and 66% of people 55 and older; 65% of homeowners and 50% of renters. The only demographic group for which less than 50% said that Proposition 13 was mostly a good thing was African Americans, at 39%.


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: The survey also found that 40% of Californians, and 50% of likely voters said that Proposition 13's supermajority requirement for new special taxes has had a good effect on local government services provided to residents, while 20% of both Californians and likely voters said it had a bad effect, and the remainder felt it had no effect.


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: At the same time, a majority of both Californians (55%) and likely voters (56%) opposed lowering the supermajority threshold for local special taxes.


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: Proposition 13 is often considered the "third rail" of California politics, which means that politicians avoid discussions of changing it.


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: In the 2003 California recall election in which Arnold Schwarzenegger was elected governor, his advisor Warren Buffett suggested that Proposition 13 be repealed or changed as a method of balancing the state's budget. Schwarzenegger, believing that such an act would be inadvisable politically and could end his gubernatorial career, said, "I told Warren that if he mentions Proposition 13 again he has to do 500 sit-ups."


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: Gavin Newsom, when asked about the fairness of Proposition 13 in a 2010 interview with "The Bay Citizen", said: "The political realities are such that Democrats, not just Republicans and Independents, are overwhelmingly opposed to making adjustments in terms of the residential side of Prop. 13. On the commercial and industrial side, there seems to be a lot more openness to debate...Of course, it's a difficult time to do that...when you're trying to encourage manufacturing back into your state, and you already have a cost differential between states that border us, you don't want to now increase their burden in terms of property tax on that commercial and industrial space."


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: In 2011, California Governor Jerry Brown was quoted as saying that it wasn't Proposition 13 that was the problem, but "It was what the Legislature did after 13, it was what happened after 13 was passed" because the legislature reduced local authorities' power. In a later interview in 2014, he lamented that he hadn't built up a "war chest" with which to campaign for an alternative to Proposition 13. Governor Brown said he'd learned from his failure in the mid-1970s to build a war chest that he could have used to push an alternative to Proposition 13. Governor Brown was definitive that he would not seek to change the law, a third rail in California politics. "Prop. 13 is a sacred doctrine that should never be questioned," he said.


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: Proposition 58 allowed homeowners to transfer their principal residence to children without a property tax re-assessment, as well as the first $1 million (not indexed to inflation) in assessed value of other real property. It passed with 76% of the vote.


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: Between Proposition 58 and 1996 Proposition 193, which extends Proposition 58 to grandparents, a 2017 report from California's Legislative Analyst's Office (LAO) found that roughly one out of 20 houses statewide received the exemption in the decade ending in 2015, at an average rate of one out of every 200 houses per year. They estimated total foregone yearly property tax revenue for all exemptions ever received at $1.5 billion in 2015, or about 2.5% of total statewide property tax revenue. The report said that while the exemption made it possible for some to live in their parent's house, it likely incentivized the conversion of inherited houses into rental property or other uses. The report said the exemption probably created downward pressure on rents while causing more Californians to be renters rather than homeowners.


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: Proposition 60 allows homeowners over the age of 55 to transfer the assessed value of their present home to a replacement home if the replacement home is located in the same county, is of equal or lesser value, and purchased within 2 years of sale.


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: Proposition 90 was similar to 1986 Proposition 60 in that it allowed homeowners over the age of 55 to transfer the assessed value of their present home to a replacement home if the replacement home was located in a different county, provided the incoming county allowed the transfer.


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: Proposition 193 extended 1986 Proposition 58 by allowing grandparents to transfer to their grandchildren their primary residence and up to $1 million (not indexed to inflation) in other real property without a property tax re-assessment, when both parents of the grandchild are deceased. It passed with 67% of the vote.


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: Proposition 218, called the "Right to Vote on Taxes Act," is an initiative constitutional amendment approved by California voters on November 5, 1996. Proposition 218 was sponsored by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association as a constitutional follow-up to Proposition 13.


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: The proposition established constitutional limits on the ability of local governments to levy benefit assessments on real property and property-related fees and charges such as those for utility services to property. The assessment and property-related fee and charge reforms contained in Proposition 218 were in response to California local governments' use of revenue sources that circumvented the two-thirds vote requirement to raise local taxes under Proposition 13.


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: It also requires voter approval before a local government, including a charter city, may impose, increase, or extend any local tax. It also constitutionally reserves to local voters the right to use the initiative power to reduce or repeal any local tax, assessment, fee or charge, including provision for a significantly reduced petition signature requirement to qualify a measure on the ballot.


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: Proposition 39 lowered the required supermajority necessary for voters to impose local school bond acts from two-thirds (2/3) of the votes cast to 55%.


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: Proposition 26 added a constitutional definition of "tax" for purposes of the two-thirds legislative vote requirement for state taxes under Proposition 13.


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: Following the defeat of Proposition 5 in 2018, the California Association of Realtors sponsored another measure similar to their prior initiative. It appeared on the November 2020 ballot and was approved by voters by a narrow margin. This measure provides reassessment exemptions to all homeowners over the age of 55 moving within the state, for a total of three lifetime moves, financed by narrowing Proposition 58 and Proposition 193 to solely inherited primary residences or farms, with an inflation-adjusted exemption cap of $1 million in market value at the time of death, and requires the heir to continually live in the residence or face reassessment (this requirement does not apply to farm property).


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: Since its passage in 1978, there have been many attempts to change Proposition 13 through legislation, legal challenges, and additional ballot measures. In 1992, a legal challenge ("Nordlinger v. Hahn") was considered by the United States Supreme Court, which subsequently ruled 8–1 that Proposition 13 was constitutional.


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: "Amador Valley Joint Union High School District v. State Board of Equalization" was a California Supreme Court case in which the aforementioned school district challenged the constitutionality of Proposition 13. In the ruling, the state's high court confirmed that an initiative cannot "revise" the constitution; Proposition 13, however, was an amendment to the California Constitution and not a revision.


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: Stephanie Nordlinger had purchased a property in the Los Angeles area in 1988 and, under the provisions of Proposition 13, was required to have the property reassessed at a new value. The reassessed value of Nordlinger's property raised her tax rates by 36%, while her neighbors continued to pay significantly lower rates on their property. Disheartened by the disparity in taxation, Nordlinger viewed this reassessment as favoritism in the eyes of the law and elected to bring charges up on the Los Angeles County Tax Assessment office and its primary assessor, Kenneth Hahn.


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: Nordlinger subsequently sued the Los Angeles County Tax Assessor Kenneth Hahn on the grounds of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The Supreme Court held in "Nordlinger v. Hahn" that Proposition 13 was constitutional. Justice Harry Blackmun, writing the majority opinion, noted that California had a "legitimate interest in local neighborhood preservation, continuity, and stability" and that it was acceptable to treat owners who have invested for some time in property differently from new owners. One who objected to the rules could choose not to buy.


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: Thirty years after purchasing her house, Nordlinger, now a senior citizen on a limited income, paid $3,400 a year in property taxes on the house, which had increased in value to $900,000.


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: In December 2011, Charles E. Young, former University of California, Los Angeles chancellor, brought a lawsuit with a team of lawyers headed by William Norris, a retired federal judge of the United States 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. They unsuccessfully sued to overturn the Proposition 13 requirement that a two-thirds (2/3) vote of the Legislature is required to increase state taxes.


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: The property transfer loophole was almost closed in 2014 by a bipartisan coalition in the state legislature but the effort died after progressive politicians, organized labor, and community groups refused to support the effort. In 2015 and 2018, Republican efforts to fix this loophole were stalled by Democratic state legislators in legislative committee. Another Republican attempt to close the loophole was made in 2020. Democrat Don Perata, former California senate leader, said this loophole is left open by his party to create justification for ending Proposition 13.


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: Proposition 5 would have extended 1986 California Proposition 60 and 1988 California Proposition 90 by providing property tax savings to all homeowners who are over age 55 (or who meet other qualifications) when they move to a different home. It was sponsored by the California Association of Realtors.


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: California's Legislative Analyst's Office estimated that this would cost local governments about $100 million per year over the first few years, growing to $1 billion per year (in 2018 dollars) over time.


title: 1978 California Proposition 13

text: Proposition 15 (also known as split roll) was an initiative constitutional amendment appearing on the November 2020 California statewide ballot that would have raised taxes by amending Proposition 13 to require the reassessment of commercial and industrial properties at market value, including commercial and industrial property owned by a natural person. The measure failed to pass, with 52% of votes cast in opposition to the measure.


title: Cannabis in the United States

text: The use, sale, and possession of cannabis over 0.3% THC in the United States, despite laws in many states permitting it under various circumstances, is illegal under federal law. As a Schedule I drug under the federal Controlled Substances Act (CSA) of 1970, cannabis over 0.3% THC (legal term marijuana) is considered to have "no accepted medical use" and have a high potential for abuse and physical or psychological dependence. Cannabis use is illegal for any reason, with the exception of FDA-approved research programs. However, individual states have enacted legislation permitting exemptions for various uses, including medical, industrial, and recreational use.


title: Cannabis in the United States

text: Cannabis for industrial uses (hemp) was made illegal to grow without a permit under the CSA because of its relation to cannabis as a drug, and any imported products must adhere to a zero tolerance policy. The Agricultural Act of 2014 allows for universities and state-level departments of agriculture to cultivate cannabis for research into its industrial potential. In December 2018, hemp was permitted to be grown in the U.S. under federal law after the Hemp Farming Act was included in the passed 2018 Farm Bill.


title: Cannabis in the United States

text: As a psychoactive drug, cannabis continues to find extensive favor among recreational and medical users in the U.S. As of 2022, twenty-one states, two U.S. territories, and the District of Columbia have legalized recreational use of cannabis. Thirty-seven states, four U.S. territories, and D.C. have legalized medical use of the drug. Multiple efforts to reschedule cannabis under the CSA have failed, and the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled in "United States v. Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative" (2001) and "Gonzales v. Raich" (2005) that the federal government has a right to regulate and criminalize cannabis, whether medical or recreational. As a result, cannabis dispensaries are licensed by each state; these businesses sell cannabis products that have not been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, nor are they legally registered with the federal government to sell controlled substances. Although cannabis has not been approved, the FDA recognizes the potential benefits and has approved two drugs that contain components of marijuana.


title: Cannabis in the United States

text: The ability of states to implement cannabis legalization policies was weakened after U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions rescinded the Cole Memorandum on January 4, 2018, and issued a new memo instructing U.S. attorneys to enforce federal law related to marijuana. The Cole memo, issued by former Deputy Attorney General James Cole in 2013, urged federal prosecutors to refrain from targeting state-legal marijuana operations. Regarding the medical use of cannabis, the Rohrabacher–Farr amendment still remains in effect to protect state-legal medical cannabis activities from enforcement of federal law.


title: Cannabis in the United States

text: The Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 was one of the first measures to cannabis nationwide. This act was overturned in 1969 in "Leary v. United States", and was repealed and replaced with the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) by Congress the next year. Under the CSA cannabis was assigned a Schedule I classification, deemed to have a high potential for abuse and no accepted medical use – thereby prohibiting even medical use of the drug. The classification has remained since the CSA was first signed into law, despite multiple efforts to reschedule. In direct response, the U.S. Libertarian Party was one of the first major parties to endorse cannabis legalization in their first platform in 1972 which stated, "We favor the repeal of all laws creating "crimes without victims" now incorporated in Federal, state and local laws—such as laws on voluntary sexual relations, drug use, gambling, and attempted suicide." As cannabis prohibition continued into the 21st Century, the U.S. Marijuana Party was formed in 2002 as a single-issue party to end the war on drugs and to legalize cannabis. States have also begun to engage in the process of nullification to override federal laws pertaining to cannabis. California started the trend by legalizing medicinal cannabis in 1996. Now, cannabis has been fully legalized for recreational use in 19 states with most states having some sort of state nullification of federal cannabis laws. In 1969, Gallup conducted a poll asking Americans whether "the use of marijuana should be legal" with only 12% at the time saying yes. In 1977, it rose to 28% and experienced a period of gradual increase thereafter. According to the latest poll, two-thirds of Americans think marijuana use should be legal.


title: Cannabis in the United States

text: Roger Roffman, a professor of social work at the University of Washington, asserted in July 2013 that "approximately 3.6 million Americans are daily or near daily users." Peter Reuter, a professor at the School of Public Policy and the Department of Criminology at the University of Maryland, College Park, said that "experimenting with marijuana has long been a normal part of growing up in the U.S.; about half of the population born since 1960 has tried the drug by age 21." A World Health Organization survey found that the U.S. is the world's leading per capita marijuana consumer. The 2007 National Survey on Drug Use & Health prepared by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services indicated that 14.4 million U.S. citizens over the age of 12 had used marijuana within a month. The 2008 survey found that 35 million Americans were willing to tell government representatives that they had used marijuana in the past year.


title: Cannabis in the United States

text: According to the 2001 "National Survey on Drug Use and Health" by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, a branch of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 41.9% (more than 2 in 5) of all Americans 12 or older have used cannabis at some point in their lives, while 11.5% (about 1 in 9) reported using it "this year." According to a 2022 Gallup survey, 16% of Americans reported being marijuana smokers (up from 7% in 2013) and 48% reported trying marijuana at some point in their lifetimes (up from 4% in 1969).


title: Cannabis in the United States

text: Medical use is a common reason why people use marijuana. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, "The term medical marijuana refers to using the whole unprocessed marijuana plant or its basic extracts to treat a disease or symptom." However, the U.S Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has not officially approved marijuana as a medicine.


title: Cannabis in the United States

text: Since the Controlled Substances Act of 1970 classified marijuana as a Schedule I drug, until the passage of the 2018 United States farm bill, under federal law it was illegal to possess, use, buy, sell, or cultivate cannabis in all U.S. jurisdictions. As a Schedule I substance, the highest restriction of five different schedules of controlled substances, it is claimed cannabis has a high potential for abuse and has no acceptable medical use. Despite this federal prohibition, some state and local governments established laws attempting to decriminalize cannabis, which has reduced the number of "simple possession" offenders sent to jail, since federal law enforcement rarely targets individuals directly for such relatively minor offenses. Other state and local governments ask law enforcement agencies to limit enforcement of drug laws with respect to cannabis. However, under the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution, federal law preempts conflicting state and local laws. In most cases, the absence of a state law does not present a preemption conflict with a federal law.


title: Cannabis in the United States

text: The federal government criminalized marijuana under the Interstate Commerce Clause, and the application of these laws to intrastate commerce were addressed squarely by the U.S. Supreme Court in "Gonzales v. Raich", 352 F. 3d 1222 in 2005.


title: Cannabis in the United States

text: In January 2009, President Barack Obama's transition team organized a poll to clarify some of the top issues the American public wants to have his administration look into, and two of the top ten ideas were to legalize the use of cannabis. In July 2009, Gil Kerlikowske, Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, clarified the federal government's position when he stated that "marijuana is dangerous and has no medicinal benefit" and that "legalization is not in the president's vocabulary, and it's not in mine." However, a January 2010 settlement between the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana (WAMM) provided an example confirming the administration policy as communicated by Attorney General Eric Holder, as WAMM reached an agreement that allowed them to re-open after being shut down by the federal government in 2002.


title: Cannabis in the United States

text: Following the 2012 presidential election, the Office of National Drug Control Policy under the Obama administration stated that it "steadfastly opposes legalization of marijuana and other drugs because legalization would increase the availability and use of illicit drugs, and pose significant health and safety risks". In February 2014, the administration issued guidelines to banks for conducting transactions with legal marijuana sellers so these new businesses can stash away savings, make payroll, and pay taxes like any other enterprise. However, marijuana businesses still lack access to banks and credit unions due to Federal Reserve regulations.