Pubdate: Fri, 09 Mar 2012
Source: Sacramento Bee (CA)
Copyright: 2012 The Sacramento Bee
Contact: http://mapinc.org/url/0n4cG7L1
Website: http://www.sacbee.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/376
Author: Peter Hecht

CALIFORNIA MEDICAL POT BACKERS DROP BALLOT PLAN FOR REGULATORY SCHEME

Medical marijuana advocates are dropping efforts to qualify a 
November ballot initiative to regulate California's dispensary 
industry and instead plan a media campaign to lobby the Legislature 
to tackle the issue.

Cannabis industry groups including dispensaries, medical marijuana 
growers and a powerful union drafted the proposed measure in the face 
of an ongoing federal crackdown on California's $1.5 billion 
medicinal pot trade.

But a top campaign director said initiative planners instead have 
decided to run television and radio ads to urge lawmakers and Gov. 
Jerry Brown to enact rules governing how medical marijuana outlets 
operate in the state.

"We're not doing the initiative. We're pulling the plug on it," said 
Dan Rush, director of the Medical Cannabis and Hemp Division for the 
United Food and Commercial Workers, which has been organizing 
California pot workers for the past two years.

Rush said Thursday that he had secured $1.2 million in pledges, 
mostly from the dispensary industry, toward $2 million to gather 
signatures for a November initiative.

But with time running out and other major funders undecided over 
whether to pursue a ballot or legislative strategy, Rush said 
initiative backers decided to take their case to the Capitol instead. 
He said the money pledged to date will be used for "a full-on media 
campaign," including lobbying and likely television and radio spots 
this summer.

Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, has introduced legislation 
seeking to accomplish many aims of the ballot initiative, the 
proposed Medical Marijuana Regulation, Control and Taxation Act.

Ammiano's Assembly Bill 2312 would create a Board of Medical 
Marijuana Enforcement under the state Department of Consumer Affairs 
to approve or deny permits for dispensaries and oversee medical 
marijuana cultivation, transportation, distribution and sales.

The Ammiano bill also includes a provision in the proposed initiative 
to mandate that cities and counties permit one dispensary for every 
50,000 residents unless local voters approve local ordinances to ban them.

But the Ammiano bill scraps plans for a 2.5 percent statewide tax on 
medical marijuana businesses in favor of provisions allowing local 
governments to impose a one-quarter percent to 2 percent tax on 
medicinal pot transactions.

"They were not going to get a tax passed in Sacramento," said Dale 
Gieringer, California director of the National Organization for 
Reform of Marijuana Laws.

Even a regulatory measure for marijuana could prove a tough sell to 
lawmakers, many of whom are skittish about being portrayed as pro-dispensary.

The proposed ballot initiative came together after California's four 
U.S. attorneys announced charges Oct. 7 against targeted 
dispensaries, growers and financial speculators in the medical 
marijuana market and threatened pot business landlords with seizures 
of properties.

Backers of the initiative were up against a June deadline to gather a 
half-million valid voter signatures to qualify the measure.

"I always felt it was an uphill battle because we started so late," 
Gieringer said.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom