A ballot initiative to legalize recreational marijuana use in California has received enough signatures to place it before voters next year, organizers said.

The “Tax, Regulate and Control Cannabis Act of 2010” has garnered 680,000 signatures, more than the 433,971 required to be placed on the state’s ballot, said Salwa [...]]]> From Bloomberg News:

A ballot initiative to legalize recreational marijuana use in California has received enough signatures to place it before voters next year, organizers said.

The “Tax, Regulate and Control Cannabis Act of 2010” has garnered 680,000 signatures, more than the 433,971 required to be placed on the state’s ballot, said Salwa Ibrahim, a spokeswoman for the measure’s sponsor, Oaksterdam University in Oakland, which bills itself as “America’s first cannabis college.”

“We’re going to keep collecting signatures until we have to turn it in,” before the February deadline, Ibrahim said in an interview today. “They’re from all over the state of California.”

The measure, which must be certified by the secretary of state before it can officially be placed on the ballot, would allow adults 21 and older to possess an ounce of marijuana and cultivate 25 square feet (2.3 square meters) for personal consumption, Ibrahim said. Cities and counties can decide how and if to tax commercial sales and cultivation.

“So for instance, in a Danville or Alamo, if they’re like, ‘Oh my gosh, we do not want dispensaries or any of that in our communities,’ that’s fine, they don’t have to have it,” she said. “But a place like Oakland, where we desperately need the revenue, it would be a perfect fit.”

A Field Poll conducted in April showed that 56 percent of registered voters in California supported legalizing and taxing marijuana.

Retired Orange County Judge Jim Gray, a Libertarian, is saying yes to pot.

How about you?

I checked in with Gray to get his thoughts on the initiative that appears to have enough votes to make the November ballot. Gray is not a smoker, but he has [...]]]> From the LA TIMES “Talk Back to Steve Lopez” column:

Retired Orange County Judge Jim Gray, a Libertarian, is saying yes to pot.

How about you?

I checked in with Gray to get his thoughts on the initiative that appears to have enough votes to make the November ballot. Gray is not a smoker, but he has long preached that it’s time to stop wasting so many resources on investigation, prosecution and incarceration.

“The only thing I have a quarrel with,” Gray said of the initiative, is calling it “legalization” of pot. “It’s really regulated control, like alcohol.”

Cities and counties could allow the cultivation and sale of marijuana and tax it under the initiative, which would also make it legal for anyone 21 and up to possess an ounce and grow pot for personal use. Backers claim about $1.3 billion in tax revenue could be raised each year.

It’s practically legal already, judging by how easy it was for me to get a marijuana “recommendation” from a doctor.

Gray said he has been asked to be a spokesman for the initiative, and he’ll be debating L.A. County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley on various marijuana issues Jan. 19 at the California Club.

A poll taken early this year found that 56% of Californians favor legalization, and Gray said he thinks it will pass, but that’s no certainty because “law enforcement and others are going to take their hatchets out.”

Let’s put it to a vote right now. Leave yours in the comments below.

Speaking with reporters, [...]]]> Truly a landmark event in the medical cannabis movement!

Obama Administration

to Stop Raids on

Medical Marijuana Dispensers

From the NY Times:

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. on Wednesday outlined a shift in the enforcement of federal drug laws, saying the administration would effectively end the Bush administration’s frequent raids on distributors of medical marijuana.

Speaking with reporters, Mr. Holder provided few specifics but said the Justice Department’s enforcement policy would now be restricted to traffickers who falsely masqueraded as medical dispensaries and “use medical marijuana laws as a shield.”

In the Bush administration, federal agents raided medical marijuana distributors that violated federal statutes even if the dispensaries appeared to be complying with state laws. The raids produced a flood of complaints, particularly in California, which in 1996 became the first state to legalize marijuana sales to people with doctors’ prescriptions.

Graham Boyd, the director of the American Civil Liberties Union drug law project, said Mr. Holder’s remarks created a reasonable balance between conflicting state and federal laws and “seem to finally end the policy war over medical marijuana.” He said officials in California and the 12 other states that have authorized the use of medical marijuana had hesitated to adopt regulations to carry out their laws because of uncertainty created by the Bush administration.

Mr. Holder said the new approach was consistent with statements made by President Obama in the campaign and was based on an assessment of how to allocate scarce enforcement resources. He said dispensaries operating in accord with California law would not be a priority for the administration.

Mr. Holder’s comments appeared to be an effort to clarify the policy after some news reports last month interpreted his answer to a reporter’s question to be a flat assertion that all raids on marijuana growers would cease. Department officials said Mr. Holder had not intended to assert any policy change last month but was decidedly doing so on Wednesday.

Ethan Nadelmann, the founder of the Drug Policy Alliance, said Mr. Holder was telling the Drug Enforcement Administration that it should leave legitimate growers of medical marijuana untouched. “The message from the Bush Justice Department was ‘watch out — we have the authority to go after everybody,’ ” he said.

On other matters, in his first wide-ranging conversation with reporters as attorney general, Mr. Holder said the Justice Department was still reviewing the case files of detainees held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to determine whether they could be released or would be tried in a civilian criminal court or some other legal forum. He said it was possible that some detainees like the Uighurs held in Cuba could be released into the United States.