An initiative that would legalize and regulate recreational marijuana in California was cleared for signature gathering by the state attorney general on Friday. Should organizers gather the required 504,000 signatures, the initiative will appear on the ballot in November. California Attorney General Kamala Harris released her summary on the final version of the Marijuana Control, Legalization and Revenue Act (MCLR) on Friday, which contained stricter protections for children than its previous version. The initiative is one of two legalization attempts currently gathering signatures in the state. In her generally positive summary, Harris wrote that MCLR could “reduce costs potentially exceeding $100 million annually to state and local governments related to enforcing certain marijuana-related offenses, handling the related criminal cases in the court system, and incarcerating and supervising certain marijuana offenders.†Though the green light is a big step, the fight is far from over for MCLR. Initiative organizers have committed $500,000 to signature gathering but project that an additional $2 million may be necessary to complete the task. MCLR organizers have established a donation page on the group's website. “We are calling on all marijuana users and supporters to help make 2014 happen,†said Dave Hodges, one of initiative's primary backers, in a written statement. California voters have signaled that they may be ready to legalize. Two separate public polls -- one by Field Poll and another by the Public Polling Institute -- showed thatover 50 percent of voters favor recreational legalization. And it seems that politicians are following suit, though at least one would prefer marijuana policy reform activists wait until 2016. Governor Jerry Brown has refused to push for legalization, but Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom has been a staunch supporter. In October, Newsom announced plansto launch a two-year research effort led by professors, medical professionals and policy researchers examining the potential effects of legalization. "Communities are devastated because of this abject thing called the drug war," he told The Huffington Post. "Forget the politics. This is the right thing to do." Newsom, however, hopes to wait until the research is completed in 2016 before bringing legalization to the ballot. "We need to answer the tough questions before we put it on the ballot," he said. "I want the research in order to be more convincing to others." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/03/california-marijuana-legalization_n_4719514.html
I am skeptical. I saw what happened with Prop 19. And the same system of money making dispensaries who don't want to go over to recreational unless you treat cannabis like oregano(which will not pass anywhere in the USA) are still there. I stand by what I have always said. The entire southeast will get full legalization before California does.
they are lagging behind Oregon...but what ever...would be nice if the whole west coast was 'paradise' for the people
Does anyone know about Indiana getting it legalized? If not I movin to cali Sent from my IdeaTabA1000L-F using Grasscity Forum mobile app
Prop 19 failed because of greedy growers, who had 14 years to get accustomed to their exorbitant profits. Recreational will drop the price significantly, and they dont want that. Even though Cali lead the way for medical, I dont think its gonna be recreational any time soon. Greed ruins everything.
Anyone have any info about who is behind this? Namely: Americans for Policy Reform. http://www.americansforpolicyreform.com/ If you have no idea whom is behind these laws, stay well away. That is just common sense. Know WHAT and WHOM you are voting for.
I disagree. Prop 19 was killed by the feds (polling over 50% until AG Holder made his statement). Lack of support from growers and/or dispensary operators did not help, but there's no way that amounted to the almost 700,000 votes that Prop 19 lost by. Lots of people point out that the Emerald Triangle voted "no", but so did almost all of Northern California, the Central Valley, and just about everywhere else except for the bay area and Southern California. Holder killed it when he said the feds would "vigorously enforce" federal laws against people who grow, distribute, or sell marijuana, regardless of California's ballot initiative. After that the polling steadily declined until election day. I am skeptical about 2014, but not about 2016. And I don't believe the entire southeast will get full legalization by 2016.
Damn if only 700,000k growers would have voted yes. Lol. I love how they try to blame it on the growers. Pretty sure they are 5x as many consumers as there are growers.
makes sense... if the feds will take 18+ as a soldier give them a weapon, train them to be a weapon, deploy them to fight, kill or die for the country...why shouldn't they be treated as adults?
You are being disingenous. It isn't that there are 700k growers even if you broaden the category to include the dispensary owners. However, those dispensary owners have their customers as an audience. They can talk to those customers(who would reasonably trust them about cannabis related topics). If there are around 2100 dispensaries, collectives, etc(which is a reasonable number considering there are around 1k in LA alone) and they influence around 334 voters each then that would put the total right around 700k. Now, of course, it would be possible to craft a bill that the dispensaries would not scuttle. The problem is that the only bill that the dispensaries would support is something that would not get the support of the majority of voters(aka, simply removing all laws concerning cannabis from the books). So your options are a bill that non-cannabis users would get behind(aka, at LEAST 55% of the population) that the dispensaries would scuttle by mobilizing the cannabis community that aren't policy wonks against it or a bill that they would support which nobody who is a cannabis user would get behind. Therefore no bill is ever passed, dispensaries keep their profits, and California becomes the laughing stock of the legalization movement. All because of the dispensary owners.
I was right with you up until this point... Your point that dispensary owners and growers may have influenced others to vote against Prop 19 is valid, however I sincerely doubt that 2,100 dispensary owners could each influence 334 voters to vote "no" on legalization in California. Add to that the fact that not all dispensary owners and growers opposed Prop 19 and I think it is nearly impossible mathematically.
Oddly enough I thought that I was being quite conservative with my numbers there, considering how much foot traffic a dispensary would get , how truly adamant the anti Prop 19 dispensary owners were, and how most people really aren't that interested in politics and tend to defer to experts. However, I would be happy to reduce my numbers and my point would still be pretty solid. I would say that a good majority of the dispensary owners were against Prop 19, so at least 1500 would be working to convince voters against it. If you really, really lowball it and say that they only got 200 No votes per dispensary then that still means that if everything else was done right you would still lose by 300,000 votes. Which still puts you in exactly the same position. You either make the dispensaries happy with something that the 55% of people who don't use cannabis will never approve or the dispensaries scuttle it. That reminds me. One thing to keep in mind is the difference between likely and unlikely voters. For reasons that are obvious someone who goes to a dispensary is deeply invested in anything cannabis related. Because of this any voter that is turned one way or another at a dispensary is much more valuable than someone who hears about the initiative through other means(if someone picks up a flyer on the street they might not care enough about cannabis to bother either way). This is why the inter-scene fighting is so utterly damaging. It's like this. There are three categories of voting blocks that you have to look at when you want to get something passed. 1. The definite yes votes. 2. The definite no votes. 3. The fence sitters. In order to run an effective campaign you have to be able to depend on the first category to vote yes while being able to craft something that can bring the third category over to your side. This is the delicate balance that is politics and why you have things like "No Home Grow" and "Taxes for Schools". It is to get enough of the fence sitters with the definite yes votes so we can overcome the definite no votes. However, you have to make sure to not give up too much or you erode your definite yes votes. The CA dispensary owners against Prop 19 and the No on 502 crowd were so dangerous because they forced the people behind the respective initiatives to have to secure the definite yes votes which in the case of Prop 19 scuttled the whole thing. And that is your Politics 101 lesson for today. P.S. : Yes, I am a wonk, though usually I go more into economics(labor theory in particular). I studied the ins and outs of how initiatives are passed back in 2010 when California utterly fucked my dreams of being able to buy weed in a store without having to go to Europe and almost get flattened by trams and crazed Dutch people going 9 million miles an hour on bikes.