THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA voted on Tuesday not to decriminalised the possession and cultivation of marijuana – on the same day that the city of San Francisco moved to ban giving away toys in McDonald’s Happy Meals.

The San Francisco Chronicle reports that the city’s Board of Supervisors gave its preliminary approval on Tuesday to a new measure banning the inclusion of free toys in fast food meals.

The city’s fast food outlets – with McDonald’s the obvious target of such a bill – will now only be permitted to offer such toys unless the meals being sold have a low sodium, sugar and fat content, and include a serving of fruit and vegetables.

The board voted 8-3 in favour of the ban – narrowly securing the two-thirds majority it required to overturn the veto of the city’s mayor Gavin Newsom, who had promised to block the ban if it was within his power to do so.

A final vote will now take place next week, with the ban coming into effect in December 2011.

A local businessman owning ten McDonald’s franchises in the city said the board had “took the happy out of Happy Meals… It would be an understatement to say how disappointed I am with this legislation.”

The vote on Tuesday coincided with the country’s mid-term elections, alongside which Californian voters defeated Proposition 19, a citizen-led initiative that would have made it legal to possess and cultivate marijuana in one’s own home, and to consume the drug in licenced areas.

The ballot was defeated by 53.8% to 46.2%, having been opposed by the outgoing governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and the two main candidates hoping to replace him, victorious Democrat Jerry Brown and his Republican opponent, former eBay CEO Meg Whitman.

Other ballots held on Tuesday included those for the state legislatures, with Californians also re-elected outgoing state senator Jenny Oropeza in the 28th Senate district – a mundane feat if it wasn’t for the fact that Oropeza had died on October 20.