March 24 (Bloomberg) – California voters will decide in November whether to legalize marijuana for recreational use in the most-populous U.S. state after advocates of the drug gathered enough support to put it on the ballot.
Advocates of allowing the use of the drug gathered enough signatures to place the initiative before voters in the Nov. 2 election, said California Secretary of State Debra Bowen in a statement today.
California allowed for the use of marijuana for medical reasons under a ballot measure passed in 1996 and more than a dozen other states have followed suit. This year’s proposition would allow anyone over 21 to use the drug and grow it for personal use even though marijuana is illegal under U.S. law.
“If passed, this initiative would offer a welcome change to California’s miserable status quo marijuana policy,” said Aaron Smith, California policy director for the Marijuana Policy Project, which endorsed the initiative. “Year after year, prohibition forces police to spend time chasing down non-violent marijuana offenders while tens of thousands of violent crimes go unsolved.”
The campaign for a public vote came after a legalization proposal failed in the California Legislature. State Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, a Democrat from San Francisco, sponsored a bill which would have regulated and taxed marijuana to raise money for the cash-strapped state government.
$15 Billion Sales
Marijuana, produced from the cannabis plant, can be smoked or ingested. The proposition would allow adults to possess as much as one ounce of marijuana, cultivate it in private gardens, and allows for local governments to levy taxes on it. Proponents estimate that $15 billion of marijuana is sold illegally in California each year.
President Barack Obama’s Justice Department told federal prosecutors last year not to pursue criminal charges against people who use or supply the drug for medical purposes in accordance with state laws, reversing the Bush administration’s approach. The new guidelines, which didn’t legalize the drug, gave priority to prosecuting drug traffickers and cartels that profit from the illicit trade.
A spokeswoman for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency in Los Angeles didn’t immediately respond to an e-mail seeking comment on the initiative.
I’m hoping some LEO will post here with their thoughts on this.
I think it’s fantastic. I worked at a casino for several years, and I never had a single bad experience with pot smokers. Ever. And we were making contact with them two or three times a night.
All the arguments for this being a smart move are present. Money, public health and safety, money. We do more harm making this simple plant illegal. If you take power out of the dealers hands, then you have less and less violence.
I’m sure the Mexican cartels and the gangs who distribute the illegal marijuana coming into this country are flipping out as well. They’ll probably hire lobbyists to protect their criminal interests as this would cripple their profits, and in CA it would probably be possible.
Something similar to a field sobriety test would be sufficient, besides the fact they’re going 25mph on the freeway. Most people who smoke weed want to sit on their couch, eat Bulldog’s Doritos and watch a movie.
Only with habitual smokers does THC stay in your system for any lengthy period of time.
a blood test with proper thresholds could detect marijuana use in the last couple of hours but ignore levels that merely indicate use in the past week or several days. I believe saliva testing is an option as well. there’s really no magic to it.
Well as soon as it is legal there is no reason for illegals to drag it over the border to CA anymore, except all the other border states will see a huge increase. All the people that support prohibition are as stupid as the people that supported the prohibition of alcohol, it doesnt work. All it causes is crime, people dying, and no taxes are collected. There is no pro to the whole anti-drug argument.
This is insanity - you got to be kidding. I can just see this - “sir - did you have anything to drink or smoke today?” “if smoke, please continue, if drink…”
And I know - you wound degined this down. It is just the principle.
It doesnt surprise me, this state is broke, anything to make a buck. To be honest, I have mixed feelings about it. I’ve been a cop in California for 20 yrs. now, and have never had an issue with someone under the influence of pot. Plenty of issues with drunks, crank fiends, and crackheads. The medical marijuana laws here are a complete joke anyway, you can go to any “doctor” and get the card for just about anything. Might as well tax the hell out of it, the lib-tards who run this state tax everything else.
I’ve tried marijuana a few times, and I never saw the point. Drinking is much better, and pot makes you paranoid as hell. No real point in being illegal, plus this hurts cartels.
Alcohol causes 100 times more misery, suffering, trajedy, etc in society than MJ. So based on that alone it should be legalized as the hypocricy involved here is beyond words. There’s no comparison to the behavior problems of drunks compared to people stoned on pot. Pot generally mellows people out and makes them lazy or giggly. Alcohol turns them into arrogant loudmouthed morons more often than not.
The prohibition itself is what causes all the problems/crime. It’s an enormous burden on law enforcement, the court system, the state budget, etc. Hell, if you prohibited chocolate you’d have cartels, beheadings and a black market just like we have with MJ. The law itself causes more problems than it is designed to prevent.
Tax it and make millions. Also benefit from the lack of tying up the court/jail system. As far as laws go, address peoples’ behavior, not the drug (same as alcohol). If you’re being an idiot in public and/or driving a vehicle then we’ll deal with you, otherwise if you wanna be stoned I don’t care.
