Legal Weed in California?

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A California marijuana legalization initiative backed by the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) was filed last week with the state attorney general’s office, but the national drug reform group said it has not yet decided whether to campaign to get it on the November 2014 ballot.

The Control, Regulate, and Tax Marijuana Act would legalize up to an ounce and four plants for people 21 and over and create a statewide system of regulated marijuana commerce. It would also impose a 25% tax on retail sales.

A year ago, in the wake of the legalization victories in Colorado and Washington, major players in the California marijuana reform movement, including California NORML, the Coalition for Cannabis Policy Reform, the ACLU of California, the Drug Policy Alliance, the Marijuana Policy Project, and late drug policy reform funder Peter Lewis’s representative, Graham Boyd, met in San Francisco and came to a tentative agreement that they would work together toward putting an initiative on the ballot in 2016.

Reluctant to risk another defeat at the ballot box like Proposition 19 in 2010, the movement heavyweights jointly decided to let other states take the lead in 2014 rather than act precipitously and potentially see the reform movement suffer a major blow with another defeat in the nation’s most populous state.

But momentum in favor of marijuana legalization was growing quickly, as evidenced by a September Gallup poll’s 58% in favor of legalization nationally and polls out of red states like Indiana, Louisiana, and Texas showing majority support.

That was also the case in California, with a September Public Policy Institute of California poll showing 60% of registered voters favoring legalization and an October Tulchin poll that had support for legalization at 65% among likely voters.

Those numbers prompted some key players to reconsider, especially given that two other marijuana legalization initiatives — not vetted by the heavyweights — are already floating around. The first, the California Cannabis Hemp Initiative of 2014, the perennial effort by acolytes of the late Jack Herer, is in the signature gathering phase, but shows little sign of having the financial wherewithal to actually gather enough signatures to make the ballot.

The second, the Marijuana Control, Legalization, and Regulation Act of 2014, described by its proponents as “the world’s first open source initiative,” is pending approval at the attorney general’s office after its proponents handed in its second amended version Friday.

Now DPA has stepped in with its own 2014 initiative. “The Drug Policy Alliance is the primary force behind this and primary drafter of this initiative,” said Steve Gutwillig, DPA’s deputy director of programs. “We wanted to make sure that a responsible and well-drafted initiative would be available in 2014 should a full-fledged campaign become possible. Filing this initiative is making sure that there is a viable initiative vehicle if we go forward in 2014. We think it reflects what the voters will support.”

Gutwillig emphasized that no decision to move forward had been made, but that one would be forthcoming early next year.

The clock is ticking. The deadline for gathering signatures for November 2014 is April, and given that state officials have up to 60 days to return a ballot summary and let signature gathering commence, that means the window for signature gathering could be as short as three months. With more than 500,000 valid signatures needed to make the ballot, that would be a daunting and very expensive prospect.

It may still be better to wait for 2016, said Dale Gieringer, the longtime head of California NORML.

“I don’t see that this does much for patients or consumers,” he said. “The fact that we have three initiatives proposed for 2014 shows a relative lack of unity and a lack of adequate consultation among the various groups. And it’s really late in the day.”

Gieringer pointed to language leaving the state’s medical marijuana system intact as one issue. “We would have two systems, one with a special tax, one without,” he noted. “Guess which one most people would patronize. The legislature might respond by getting rid of collectives or dispensaries. Medical marijuana regulation is the elephant in the room, and these are complicated issues that will require consultation by a lot of interest groups.”

He also counseled patience.

“People started panicking when those strong poll numbers came out in the fall and started thinking ‘Gee, this is really feasible,’” Gieringer said. “But it was so late in the day that people couldn’t really get together and plan and vet to come up with a well-conceived plan. This is a stab in the dark, especially until we see how Colorado and Washington play out, especially the tax and regulate part. How is this going to work in the marketplace? Will people patronize highly taxed marijuana shops or not?”

The DPA effort may not be the perfect marijuana legalization initiative — that elusive creature has yet to be spotted — but it is out there now, at least as a place holder. The other two initiatives appear unlikely to actually make the ballot, so the decisions made early next year by DPA and its allies are likely to determine if California votes on marijuana legalization next year or not.