Pubdate: Thu, 30 Jul 2015
Source: Chico News & Review, The (CA)
Copyright: 2015 Chico Community Publishing, Inc.
Contact:  http://www.newsreview.com/chico/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/559
Author: Nick Miller
Note: Read the report at safeandsmartpolicy.org.

THE GREEN PRINT

What Does Roadmap for Legalizing Pot Mean for Recreational Weed on 
the 2016 Ballot?

A widely praised report on pot legalization in California released 
last week warns that recreational weed in the state won't necessarily 
mean more green for its financial coffers.

The report, by the Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom-led Blue Ribbon Commission 
on Marijuana Policy, is a 93-page opus nearly two years in the 
making. The hype was that it would be a blueprint for legalizing pot 
in California. But now that the smoke has settled-experts and pot 
interests have had a few days to actually read and dissect the 
document-one thing is clear: Legalizing pot has dozens of moving 
parts, and, little surprise, some will never agree on how to 
greenlight bud in the Golden State.

In fact, the only consensus now among cannabis stakeholders is that 
legalization won't, and shouldn't, be about the almighty dollar.

"This isn't going to be a cash cow for the state," said Brian 
McGuigan of ReformCA. "It's not going to solve all our budget woes."

ReformCA is the leading contender to get an initiative to legalize 
pot on the ballot in 2016. There are, as of deadline, five other 
possible ballot measures in the mix. And some say there likely will 
be more before the attorney general's October deadline to submit 
ballot language. But only ReformCA has retained a signature-gathering 
outfit to help. They've also performed significantly more outreach 
than the other groups, says McGuigan.

ReformCA and even most old-school pot advocates generally support the 
findings of Newsom's commission.

Dale Gieringer, a Stanford University Ph.D. who heads the California 
chapter of the National Organization to Reform Marijuana Laws 
(NORML), said that, even though there "weren't a lot of surprises" in 
the lieutenant governor's report, he was nevertheless "pleasantly 
surprised" by the committee's research and analysis.

"We think it's a good report, and we definitely are paying close 
attention to it," said Gieringer, who also supports ReformCA's 
initiative effort.

But some pot activists question whether the Blue Ribbon Commission 
discovered anything new. Jason Collinsworth, with the California 
Bipartisan Decriminalization of Cannabis Act-one of the six 
initiatives vying to qualify for the ballot-says he was disappointed 
by Newsom's findings.

"Honestly, what it all boils down to is a little bit of a waste of 
time and taxpayers' money," he told the News & Review. He says the 
group didn't "truly consult the medical-cannabis community" and 
called a great deal of the findings "out of touch."

It's worth noting that the cannabis community has a rich history of 
being divided on flagship issues (most notably in 2010, when 
Proposition 19's legalization initiative failed to pass and drew 
significant criticism from the anti-prohibitionist bloc). That said, 
critics of the commission appear to be the minority.

McGuigan with ReformCA called the report an "extremely credible, 
well-thought-out and timely analysis of how to legalize cannabis in 
California."

When one peeks inside the report, the complexity of legalization 
emerges from the smoke. It begins with a warning that the commission 
does not endorse legalization. There is, however, some semblance of a 
road map to recreational pot.

The impetus for the report, back when Newsom kicked it off in October 
2013, was that an increasing number of Californians supported the 
idea of legal weed. In turn, the commission did outreach all over the 
state-town halls, meetings, testimony, etc.-and finally crafted an 
analysis of legal marijuana's potential benefits and red flags.

The first point is that legalization will be a process, not a moment 
or event. The report says that people will need to engage the issue 
for years to ensure protections for public health, keep the black 
market at bay, cooperate with old-school pot-industry stakeholders, 
and capture the millions of tax dollars this new industry surely will generate.

Protecting young people and public safety get the commission's 
foremost attention. But there's also a focus on protecting the 
environment from the impacts of marijuana cultivation and production, 
and also the decriminalization of pot and its impact on "racial and 
economic disparities."

In total, the commission makes a whopping 58 recommendations for 
California policymakers.

NORML's Gieringer says the biggest challenge for pot in California 
will be ensuring that the state's forefathers-industry operators such 
as the cultivators who've worked in the shadows for decades-have a 
stake in the Golden State pot economy.

"It's a serious worry," he explained. "What we've been trying to do 
is take an illegal market, and take the people who've been into it, 
and get them legal. California has thousands of growers, generations 
worth of growers ... many of whom have wanted to do so legally. It's 
important that they get into the legal market."

He says that, in some states, there are only handfuls of approved 
legal medical-pot growers, and they pay hundreds of thousands of 
dollars to get in the game. It's a pay-to-play situation that's 
priced out many cannabis pioneers.

Try that in California, he says, and it will simply perpetuate the 
illegal market. "If you do this [in California], all those people are 
going to get shut out-and then you're going to have as many illegal 
growers afterward as you did beforehand."

And there's so much marijuana in this state already, Gieringer 
reminded. "We don't really need any new big marijuana plantations in 
California. We're exporting as it is."

In the end, it'll likely come down to money.

Even though stakeholders downplay the impact, all of this marijuana 
will certainly bring in new revenue. Licensing fees for growers and 
sellers, fines, taxes-the money will be flowing in ways the state has 
never experienced. The amount of money generated will be minuscule 
compared with California's $100 billion general fund, but it could 
amount to several hundred-million dollars annually.

Gieringer says he feels that the time is right for legal pot in 
California. "I just sense that the public attitude is right, that an 
intelligently written initiative will pass," he said. Short of a huge 
influx of capital to the opposition, he's confident.

McGuigan with ReformCA would not disclose any internal polling, but a 
Public Policy Institute of California poll from March of this year 
showed that a slight majority of Californians think pot should be 
legal (53 percent).

He also warned, however, that California will be a different beast 
compared with the efforts in Colorado and Washington.

"You've seen other states go ahead and legalize it. But those states 
are very different than California-the size of the states, the 
diversity," he explained.

"We feel that voters are inclined to vote for this ... but it's not 
going to be a slam dunk."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom