By Marcus Wohlsen
The Associated Press
SAN FRANCISCO — Californians could legally possess up to one ounce of pot and cities could sell and tax the drug under an initiative marijuana advocates want to place on the state’s 2010 ballot.
The Control, Regulate and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010 is being pushed by pot activists who sense a positive shift in public sentiment toward the federally banned substance. A recent Field Poll found that 56 percent of California voters supported legalizing marijuana for recreational use and taxing its proceeds.
Backers of the ballot proposal include entrepreneurs in the state’s medical marijuana industry, which has become lucrative since California voters legalized marijuana for medical use in 1996.
A leading proponent is Richard Lee, an Oakland pot dispensary owner and founder of Oaksterdam University, a medical marijuana trade school. As California cities confront plummeting revenues and the state’s massive budget crisis, voters will be open to new ways to fill public coffers, Lee said.
“We can’t waste money enforcing laws that over 50 percent of people don’t think should be in place,” he said.
Supporters expect to finalize the proposal’s language by the end of the month. The latest draft recognizes the right of anyone age 21 or older to possess up to one ounce of marijuana for personal use. Local and state authorities could raise that amount.
Residents would also have the right to cultivate up to 25-square-foot plots of marijuana on private property, but only for personal consumption.
At the same time, cities that do not want marijuana within their limits could continue to bar sales, though they would still have to permit possession.