AP15:066
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 18, 2015
CONTACT: Sam Mahood
(916) 653-6575
Proposed Initiative Enters Circulation
Medical Marijuana. Initiative Constitutional Amendment.
SACRAMENTO – Secretary of State Alex Padilla today announced the proponent of a new initiative may begin collecting petition signatures.
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 proponent and to the Secretary of State, and the initiative may be circulated for signatures. The Secretary of State then provides calendar deadlines to the proponent and to county elections officials. The Attorney General’s official title and summary for the measure is as follows:
MEDICAL MARIJUANA. INITIATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT. Establishes a state constitutional right for California residents 18 years of age or older to grow, own, purchase, and sell organic marijuana for medical use, without a doctor’s recommendation or prescription. Summary of estimate by Legislative Analyst and Director of Finance of fiscal impact on state and local government: Net reduced costs to state and local governments, possibly reaching the tens of millions of dollars annually related to enforcing certain marijuana-related offenses, handling the related criminal cases in the court system, and incarcerating and supervising certain marijuana offenders. Potential additional state and local tax revenues, primarily from sales taxes, in the low hundreds of millions of dollars annually. Additional state costs of up to several tens of millions of dollars annually to administer permits to sell medical marijuana, which would be offset by any permitting fees authorized by the state. (15-0041.)
The Secretary of State’s tracking number for this measure is 1702 and the Attorney General’s tracking number is 15-0041.
The proponent for the measure, Clarence Phillip Snider, must collect the signatures of 585,407 registered voters (eight percent of the total votes cast for governor in the November 2014 general election) in order to qualify it for the November 2016 ballot. The proponent has 180 days to circulate petitions for the measure, meaning the signatures must be submitted to county elections officials by March 15, 2016. The proponent can be reached at 12mostlyfriends@gmail.com. No phone number was provided.
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