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Marijuana Initiative Enters Circulation

Marijuana Legalization. Initiative Statute.

SACRAMENTO - Secretary of State Debra Bowen today announced that the proponents of a new initiative may begin collecting petition signatures for their measure.

The Attorney General prepares the legal title and summary that is required to appear on initiative petitions. When the official language is complete, the Attorney General forwards it to the proponents and to the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State then provides calendar deadlines to the proponents and to county elections officials, and the initiative may be circulated for signatures. The Attorney General's official title and summary for the measure is as follows:

MARIJUANA LEGALIZATION. INITlATlVE STATUTE. Decriminalizes marijuana use, possession, cultivation, transportation, distribution, or sale for adults aged 19 and older. Creates California Cannabis Commission to regulate commercial cultivation, processing, testing, transport, distribution, sale, facilities for on-premises consumption, and smoking in public, but authorizes local governments to permit conduct otherwise prohibited by state law and regulations. Exempts from rcgulation or taxation up to three pounds of marijuana for personal use. Retains laws prohibiting marijuana-related conduct that contributes to the delinquency of a minor and driving while impaired by marijuana. Summary of estimate by Legislative Analyst and Dircctor of Finance of fiscal impact on state and local government: The fiscal effects of this measure are subject to considerable uncertainty depending on the extent to which the federal government continues to enforce federal marijuana laws and depending upon how, and to what extent, the state chooses to regulate the commercial production and sale of marijuana. Savings potentially in the low hundreds of millions of dollars annually to state and local governments on the costs of enforcing certain marijuana-related offenses, handling the related criminal cases in the court system, and incarcerating and supervising certain marijuana offenders. Costs potentially up to the low tens of millions of dollars annually to the state to regulate the commercial production and sale of marijuana. Potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in net additional tax revenues related to the production and sale of marijuana products. (11-0046)

The Secretary of State's tracking number for this measure is 1524 and the Attorney General's tracking number is 11-0046.

The proponents for this measure, Joe Rogoway, Frank. H. Lucido, Pebbles Trippet, William Panzer and Omar Figueroa, must collect signatures of 504,760 registered voters – the number equal to five percent of the total votes cast for governor in the 2010 gubernatorial election – in order to qualify it for the ballot. The proponents have 150 days to circulate petitions for this measure, meaning the signatures must be collected by April 19, 2012.

The initiative proponents can be reached at (707) 520-4205.

To sign up for regular ballot measure updates via email, RSS feed, or Twitter, go to www.sos.ca.gov/multimedia.

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