(San Francisco Chronicle) (06-10) 20:40 PDT — With polls showing the legalization of marijuana gaining public support, and a state budget crisis fueling an ever-more-desperate search for revenue, backers of the first major statewide initiative to legalize marijuana for personal use – and allow counties to tax and regulate the drug – say they’re preparing to get the matter on the November 2010 ballot.
“We think the tides have turned,” said Richard Lee, the executive director of Oaksterdam University, a major medical marijuana dispensary and advocacy group in Oakland, and a founder of TaxCannabis2010.org, sponsor of the initiative.
He said polls showing voters’ support for legalization and taxation of the drug, combined with the financial strains of a recession, mean that “this will be a landmark opportunity that will generate interest and funds nationwide.” If successful, Lee said, the initiative will be viewed as a watershed – “a first step in changing federal law.”
The initiative that Lee’s group is preparing to circulate calls for legalization of small amounts of marijuana for personal possession by adults 21 and older, and allows cities and counties the option of regulating sales and cultivation. The legal amount would be 1 ounce for personal possession, with cultivation allowed in a space no larger than 5 feet by 5 feet.
The race is on on the West Coast! Oregon activists are currently pushing an act to legalize cultivation, sales, and possession for adults, and if the legislature won’t pass it, it will be introduced as an amendment. Just as in 1996 and 1998 when California and Oregon, respectively, legalized medical use of marijuana, the next decade will see these two states working toward full legalization for all. (I just hope they both succeed and soon!)
the above comment was made by an attorney, not me…but I felt it should be seen…also, google activists against prop. 19 to see how prop. 19 will affect us…in a bad way…already rancho cordoba is waiting for passage so they can have tighter controls…and do away with prop. 215…read it carefully…it is not what you think…can may be unconsitutional…notwithstanding, means contrary to what you might think , or any other law, this law, prop. 19, does this….it was written to do this…however, it overrides the constitution, age limit of 18 for one, and that may be a problem for those in favor..it should be thrown out…richard lee does not own the movement, yet he as acted as if he does.
> Prop. 19 will result in more searches, not fewer, because municipalities will be able to conduct administrative searches after getting a warrant. I represented someone whose property was searched pursuant to a warrant related to an alleged public nuisance, and it’s just as easy to lie or fail to state all relevant facts to get an administrative warrant as a criminal warrant. Plus, this system sets people up for fines of as much as $1,000.00 per day for what most people would otherwise view as no big deal — a branch that extends a few inches outside a 5 foot square area.
> Then, let’s say an administrative search warrant for the outside yard shows that you decided to try to grow TWO plants, not one, in your 25 square foot garden. (The Rancho Cordova ordinance appears to allow only 1 plant outside; read it and you’ll see this.) A city could speculate that the presence of two plants instead of one is evidence of growing for sale — prohibited under the ordinance — and go back to get a second warrant to search inside your house for more evidence of sales.
> Let’s say you had two pounds of marijuana from what you managed to save from YEARS of growing under Prop. 19′s restrictive limits, since the pro-19 folks are telling people you can legally hang onto anything you can grow and save from year to year — despite Prop. 19′s ounce limits. (Theoretically, I think this claim is true, based on the Prop’s language. Practically speaking, I doubt most MM patients would be able to save anything from year to year, since growing one “garden of 25 square feet/1 plant is not enough for most people’s problems, and certainly not enough when two or more patients in one household have to share a plot as required.)
> A warrant to search inside would turn up your hoarded two pounds — and bingo! it’s now up to you to defend yourself from a charge of growing for sale!
> Even if people actually read Prop. 19 carefully, they are not likely to figure these problems out, because to really understand to whom it applies you must have an understanding of statutory interpretation. And to anticipate problems like the use of administrative search warrants, you need to have had some specific experiences with them and realize that allowing cities to regulate marijuana in every way means — tah-dah — administrative search warrants!
> That is why I think that Richard Lee and friends are scam artists. Having drafted things myself, I can see the care which went into drafting this darn thing in a way to allow its proponents to make claims that are actually unsupported by the wording. (You did all get the analysis I did about statutory interpretation and why Prop. 19 DOES seriously affect MM patients, right?)
I think fed law needs to change as the feds will still rip out peoples plants ,state law or not!Push Barney Frank to re establish his bill.One case in point ,99 plant ‘legal’garden in mendo with the sheriffs blessing and 1050 paid for a ‘permit!DEA drops out of copter theatens people at gun point declares , this is not legal period. steals everything and leaves! BAD, WRONG , and unacceptable.The state is 25 billion in the hole .It will only get worse before better!, peace love and ganja!
Dear Mr. Lee,
Recently Illinois will be passing their own version of the Medical Marjiuana program. I would like to set up a similar business here in the state. I am a medical healthcare professional and seek the guidance of an established business.
Please email when we could discuss further.
Jim
Oh for god’s sake, do you even know Richard Lee? I do and you’re way off base.
Read the initiative. Any Californian age 21 and over who smokes a little weed and grows a few plants will NO LONGER BE CRIMINALS! You want people to vote no on that? You want people to continue to support their own oppression?
Let’s drink your haterade for a second and suppose that California legalizes and the only place you can buy it is Richard Lee’s Marijuana Emporium in Oakland. Despite all logic and commonsense, let’s pretend that only one man in one place in California will be allowed to sell marijuana to non Prop-215 patients.
So what? You can still grow your own. You can still make non-profit transfers to friends. You can still get a Prop-215 recommendation if you’re a patient and go to lots of places to buy marijuana, and you can have more than an ounce and a 5′x5′ garden area. How can anyone have a monopoly when you can still grow your own?
Richard Lee has already sunk millions of his own hard-earned dollars into this effort just to get the initiative on the ballot. What’s your initiative idea and where’s your financial backing? Oh, right… you’re the original “Reefer Raider”, more time to bitch than fight.
Original “Reefer Raider” here, and most of these comments are right on. This guy is a charlatan, and a hack. Him and his cronies are opting for a monopoly, and a propritary exclusivity in this field.
VOTE NO ON THIS INITIATIVE!
I would like to find sponsors and funding for Advertising campaigns and scholarships to
Oaksterdam university , for interested people.
Hoping that benefactors interested in the course could contact me.
galactcfed@yahoo.com or dapoartstudio@gmail.com
Thanks
I now live in Hawaii but if I still lived in California, I would absolutely be voting against Richard Lee’s initiative. As soon as I read about IMPRISONMENT in the initiative, that’s a done deal for me. NOBODY SHOULD BE LOCKED IN A CAGE FOR A PLANT. This initiative is a joke. It’s so sad how nature was criminalized in the first place. It’s really sad what greed will do.
Jack Herer already drafted the perfect initiative for cannabis relegalization, which in my own words basically states that cannabis is a plant–pure and simple–that should be allowed to be grown by anyone. But wait, I guess Jack Herer does not own a huge stake in the “marijuana” business like some greedy fucker that justs want to make as much overinflated profit as possible.
Once again, NOBODY SHOULD BE LOCKED AGAINST THEIR WILL IN A CAGE FOR A PLANT! Please for the love of God, somebody else tell me they see the insanity in this…
I can’t say I agree with Russ’s view. While the dispensaries may fuel the anti-relegalization fire, I can’t help but to think of the vendors supplying the dispensaries. I doubt the vendors are tending their legal 6 plant-per-patient gardens and bringing in a few ounces at a time to the MMJ providers. Especially when you consider the sheer number of dispensaries, one can only imagine the size of the crops it takes to vend to all of them. It should also be a concern that our “friends” in the Mexican cartels are probably profitting from serving as vendors, as well.
Add to that the countless “mom and pop” sized pharmers who depend upon prohibition prices to provide income by selling to relatively smaller markets, and you’ve got a real pile of folks who stand to lose substantial income if re-legalization actually happens.
The sad thing is that many of THOSE pharmers probably started out simply supplying friends and family members, then expanded their gardens to make the real money available out there.
I’d like to retain the romantic notion that it is Big Pharma and other major corporate interests who represent most of the opposition to prohibition repeal, but the truth is, there’s a large “closet” industry which has reason to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the folks they used to despise.
Again, more of the “I gots mine” thinking. “…more restrictive than what we have already.” Yes, perhaps you’re right, it may be more restrictive for the 5% of medical users in California, but it is much more liberal than the tickets, arrests, and criminal records faced by the 95% of Californians who grow and use cannabis non-medically. It is certainly going to do more for the 95%-99% in thirteen other medical states who use non-medically by being the first domino to fall in the legalization battle, and for the 100% of non-medical users in the other 36 states.
If anything is going to cause TaxCannabis2010 to fail, it won’t be that Californians don’t support legal marijuana – the Field poll shows support at 56% with 60% and higher in southern and coastal areas. It will be that the “I gots mine” crowd who will vote against it after being told by the dispensary owners who like prohibition profits that it will make things worse for medical users.
I’m not forecasting, I’m recalling. A huge cry rang out from the “I gots mine” crowd here in Oregon when the first iteration of OCTA was proposed for 2008. The proposal did away with all Oregon marijuana laws, except DUI and possession by minors, and replaced it with a tax and regulate legalization system for all. The “I gots mine” crowd (particularly those who would prefer keeping it medical and instituting profitable dispensaries instead) then scared the medical users by claiming that if OCTA passed, it would get rid of medical marijuana (true, because if it is legal for all, why do you need a medical exception to prosecution?), but then the courts would somehow invalidate all the legalization parts, but keep the “get rid of medical marijuana” part, and there’d be no legal marijuana for anyone.
So vigorous was this hue and cry from a sliver of the 5% of Oregon’s medical users that no consensus could be reached on OCTA and the effort died for 2008. Now as activists revive OCTA for another run in 2010, they’ve had to re-write it to specifically keep the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act in place. Yes, that means if you vote for legalization in Oregon in 2010 and it passes, any Oregonian 21 and older could walk into a regulated market and purchase cannabis for personal use… but if you have a debilitating condition, you’re still allowed to pay $100 to a needlessly redundant state bureaucracy to get a card to protect you from being arrested for something that is perfectly legal for everyone.
Mark my words: the longer we have medical-only marijuana, the more vested interests grow to maintain the status quo and impede us from full legalization. The more states that approve medical-only marijuana, the more restrictive those laws will become. And eventually, modern pharmaceutical science creates fast-acting inhalers that provide all the medical relief of whole-plant cannabis without the pesky “high” side effect. The feds will allow its prescription and the states barraged by tale after tale of “medical marijuana abuse” will shut down their medical cannabis programs and direct patients to the high-profit, insurance-covered, bar-coded inhaler.
I agree with Alan. The proposal written by Lee is more restrictive than what we have already. Dennis Peron has said as much and Lee has not denied it.
Richard Lee and this proposal is an atrocity. Richard Lee has commercialized this medicine and its access to the fullest extent allowed. Addtionally, he is typical in his big business ambitions in that he desires to structure a monopoly over this industry in his own home town.
However, even worse the proposal is so badly written that it would soon and inevitably lead to the Agricultural and Pharmaceutical Big Business conglomerates of taking over growing and distribution.
It would lead to over regulation and only big business would have resources to comply.
Richard Lee is a SELL OUT and I venture to say and idiot.
I have written him on several occasions and he (typical big business sell out mentality) refuses to respond to anything that opposes his one sided profiteering point of views.
Alan
Well, indeed, this could be the tipping point…but of what? hemp/cannabis activists have worked years to promote the freedom of cannabis…a political statement backed by our inalienable right to grown plants, and now, it has gone from political to commercial. I am wondering how the city of oakland can impose such a tax on new businesses when the state mandate, supported by initiative law, that must go back to the people to alter, has been violated by local businessmen. I am wondering that the use of a plant which unites people has now divided them. I am wondering why future dispensaries would not ignore oakland, and just open in berkeley, or elsewhere. I am wondering why dissent on a key issue results in being ostracized (fired) for speaking. We made these mistakes before, and now, the new guys are starting down this treacherous path to corporate control.
That is not to say, that everyone is entitled to their view on how to legalize forever this plant, but to strike down the opposition, with the might of control by ownership and money sounds like a road we have traveled before. Shame! brenda k
on Tuesday September 15th, 2009, Dennis Peron was fired from Oaksterdam University. According to journalist Craig Canada, his firing was the result of Peron’s opposition to his employer’s state wide initiative to “tax and regulate” Marijuana.
Dennis Peron announced on Tuesday (09/15/2009) that he returned from Burning Man to discover he had been fired from Oaksterdam University because of his opposition to taxing and regulating medical marijuana. Oaksterdam University has announced it intends to spend a million dollars to promote an initiative that would tax, regulate and control marijuana by city and county, as well as at the state level.
TaxCannabis is not the way to go, it is only supported by the cannabis industry that is looking to put in place regulations to require people to buy their weed from dispensaries and not grow their own so they dont see their huge profits dwindle…
http://www.420magazine.com/forums/international-cannabis-news/101984-war-breaks-out-within-marijuana-legalization-movement.html
Remember The Netherlands had legal age at 16 years old, form I think 1970′s – 1999 and still had way lower teen use than America.
But, 21 and over is still better than jail. I can kind of understand it considering its more of an intoxicant, compaired to tobacco. Even though its less harmful, but if they introduce a draft for some reason then they better change it to 18 cause getting shot is way worse than cannabis use.
I was wondering when Cali was going to put it on the ballot and bypass the paralysed scared legislators. Passing this and/or Nevada’s legalization prop has to be top priority because once one falls, others will also. Man is 2010 going to be a huge year or what ? Legalization on the ballot in Cali, Nevada, medical in Mass, Flordia, Arizona, Maine.
I am so happy for these states and hope and pray they pass..but I have a hard time understanding the point of making the legal age 21? I mean can I not legally buy cigs at 18, buy a lotto ticket at 18 and die for a country that upon returning from a war gets tossed aside like a newspaper at 18? then why not da herb which has been shown to have NO risk of death and only slight health-risks? the two i can see is chronic-cough or bronchitis. I understand alchol is 21 but come on we all know u cant equate alcohol and cannabis!