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.

Read on for an excerpt from the CNN interview.

Q: What is your stance on the legalization, cultivation, and regulation of marijuana in the state of California?

A: I like the law that we have in place. And I don’t believe in legalizing marijuana, [...]]]>

Earlier this month, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said “it’s time for debate” about legalizing marijuana.

Read on for an excerpt from the CNN interview.

Q: What is your stance on the legalization, cultivation, and regulation of marijuana in the state of California?

A: I like the law that we have in place. And I don’t believe in legalizing marijuana, but I’m always open for the debate because there are people that feel differently. And I said I’m always interested in debating any of these issues because there’s always different ways of looking at it. And I think it would be interesting to see the information that is available, if there’s any information available, of how well countries are doing that have legalized marijuana. But I don’t think that information is available, and I’d want us to see that.

But I believe in the law, the way the law is right now, and I think it’s worked very well for the state of California. And I think it would be a mistake to just go and legalize something that we don’t believe in just because it would produce an extra billion dollars in revenues. And I think we just have to learn how to live within our means rather than trying to do things we really don’t want to do.

Q: New polls actually show that more than half of Californians support legalizing marijuana. So would that sway your stance on it whatsoever in this open debate that you’re calling for? Would it sway your opinion?

A: Well, it could very well go on an initiative one day, where they ask the voters directly, that could very well be. And if the voters make that decision, that’s fine. But I think it is very important for us to make certain decisions not just because they would bring in some extra money, and I think this is why people have been talking about that in California, to go in that direction, and to start debating that issue. Because it would produce, as they say, $1.3 billion, $1.4 billion extra revenues.