An article in the Guardian provides the European take on the passage of Proposition 71 in California. "People decided they weren't interested in waiting, that this science needed to be pursued aggressively. They said if the US isn't going to do this as a country, then let's make California do it. ... In some respects, Proposition 71 is one of the great bright lights of this election, it's a very healthy amount of money and we're very pleased it got passed. The problem is, it's so healthy, that those of us outside California are pretty concerned. What do we do to compete?" I'm still of the opinion that removing the threat of criminalization is more important than providing government funding - since the potential private funding pool is much larger.
Link: http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/research/story/0,9865,1347820,00.html