Posted on 06/28/2016 6:55:51 PM PDT by nickcarraway
California voters will decide whether to legalize recreational marijuana after Secretary of State Alex Padilla said Tuesday that initiative proponents turned in more than enough signatures to place the question on the November ballot.
A successful vote in California would mean one in every six Americans lives in a state with legal marijuana sales, including the entire West Coast.
The initiative is promoted by a well-funded and politically connected coalition spearheaded by former Facebook president Sean Parker.
It asks voters to allow people 21 and older to buy an ounce of marijuana and marijuana-infused products at licensed retail outlets and also grow up to six pot plants for personal recreational use.
Smoking weed would remain off-limits in places where tobacco use already is prohibited, including restaurants, bars and other enclosed public places.
Sales of both recreational pot and medical marijuana initially would be subject to a 15 percent excise tax. Cities and counties would retain the right to prohibit pot-related businesses and to impose their own fees and taxes.
State officials estimate the measure would raise as much as $1 billion per year in revenue and reduce public safety costs -- for police, courts, jails and prisons -- by tens of millions. Provisions of the initiative, which requires a simple majority vote to pass, would direct most proceeds to covering regulatory costs, research on the effects of legalization, environmental mitigation, substance abuse treatment and other purposes.
It has drawn support from the California NAACP, the California Medical Association and the California Democratic Party. Sponsors are promoting it as a civil rights issue, arguing that minority communities suffer a disproportionate share of drug crimes and arrests. They also say the initiative would make it harder for people under 21 to obtain pot and easier for police to crack down on illicit sales than it has been in the two decades since California became the first U.S. state to legalize medical marijuana.
Opponents include the California Republican Party, the Teamsters Union and groups representing police chiefs and hospitals.
California voters rejected pot legalization by 7 percentage points in 2010, two years before western states began liberalizing their approach to pot. Colorado and Washington became the first states to allow recreational sales in 2012, followed two years later by Alaska and Oregon.
Initiatives allowing for casual use have qualified for November ballots in Nevada and Maine.
Why 3/4’s of the State is High already
I’m only shocked that they haven’t already done this.
This will bring all the pothead moonbats out to vote for Hillary too while they’re at it.
guess Trump can cross Cali off his list.
California will make the taxes so high (no pun intended) that the growers and customers will go underground again.
I am also surprised CA has not already legalized, but I have no doubt it will pass this time. 6 years of the culture shift like we have had means anything short of a 25pt blowout on voter referendums 5-10 years ago is likely to pass.
This is mostly about revenue enhancement through additional taxation. Lotteries and legalized marijuana exemplify how far our ravenous state and local governments will go just to feed their insatiable spending needs. These actions undermine the Democrats’ purported concern for the well-being of the citizenry — especially teenagers and young adults. The ends justify the means.
I though most had medical conditions that only marijuana could fix...:/s
And at some point in November, a lot of people will be saying, “Wait ... what? They already had the election? You’re kidding me! Damn, I was gonna vote too!”
Even if the referendum fails, they can just shop around for a judge who’ll declare recreational pot use to be a “Constitutional right”. The precedent is already tried and tested.
It’s already pretty much had full legalization. If you go to doctor and complain you can’t sleep anyone will prescribe you marijuana.
I’m only shocked that they haven’t already done this.
No surprise. I was personally acquainted with a couple of the wealthy dopers behind the original medicinal marijuana push in CA back in the ‘90’s. They were both “recreational” dope smokers.
Yes they want to raise tax on a pack of cigarettes 4.00 dollars YET legalize pot GO FIGURE!!!!!
LOL! This is a done deal, maaaaan.
They’ll just go to the medical dispensary and pick up their joints there, paying up to $300 per quarter ounce.
Though, really, I do have an interesting question for California - as the State Franchise Board requires all payments to be electronic (so they have an account to seize if they feel like it), and abjectly refuses cash payments for taxes, how do they plan on collecting from the nearly all cash business that is dope selling?
Oh, right, I keep forgetting, they don’t.
Maybe because with ganja you are not breathing tar into your lungs like cigs?
Marijuana is already de facto legal in CA, but I hope that it becomes fully legal after this vote.
IMHO, it's not conservative at all to threaten any American with prison time for the unspeakable "crime" of possessing one of God's own plants.
The Authoritarian and Prohibitionist Mind (but I repeat myself) is a wonder to behold in the somersaults it will perform in an effort to justify such Tyranny as that invariably imposed by Contraband Law. But it's all for the children of course. And "law & order".
Something tells me that nanny-state conservatives will one day join hands with nanny-state leftists to create a "Department of Pre-Crime" in the America of the future. After all, there are so many "threatening" things that might be a precursor to someone committing an actual crime. The groundwork is already being laid, both legally and philosophically.
And, as a fictional character once noted, it will likely be welcomed with applause rather than condemnation.
Flame away...
And Vote Trump!
Cigarettes can kill you. Pot might make you drive slow.
I don’t see the equivalence you see.
They are our lungs, just like abortion it is their body !!!!
You forgot part of the narrative:
“Anyone seen the brownies?”
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