Why I Oppose the “Tax & Regulate” Marijuana Initiative
Three Fatal Flaws
1. One ounce limit? 25 sq. foot per building garden size limit? Imagine a law to “tax and regulate” alcohol
that only allows for possession of up to one bottle of wine imprisoning those who exceed that amount,
be it two bottles or a small collection of choice vintages. These limits guarantee confusion, harassment
and black marketeering forevermore. We don’t control alcohol by imposing a 25 sq. foot limit on grape
vines. But one extra gram or sq. foot of pot means jail and even worse; this initiative specifies that if
accused of having too much cannabis the burden of proof is on you, not the state.
2. Singling out those who want to use marijuana for a huge excise tax is just plain unfair. It maintains
cannabis as the most expensive, blatantly overpriced product on the market thus forcing most people
to choose cheaper, more dangerous drugs with huge externalized costs to society as a whole.
3. Sending teenagers to state prison for three years for pot is evil. This initiative mandates that 18, 19,
and twenty year old minors serve three to seven year terms in California state prison for the crime of
passing each other a joint or selling one another a small amount. Under this law if a 21 year old person
passes a joint to a 20 year old he or she goes to county jail for six months. Likewise this measure has no
exceptions for parents in their own homes from the “smoking cannabis in any space while minors are
present” prohibition. We don’t lock up parents for having a glass of wine with dinner and we certainly
don’t tell the kids to leave the house for the purpose of consuming any other substance so why start
with cannabis?
This initiative is bad for parents, students and ultimately the effort to get the state to stop ruining lives
enforcing these draconian pot laws. Initiatives create permanent statutes. This one with its petty restrictions
for personal users, prohibitive unfair taxes, and mandatory state prison sentences for teen agers need be
nipped in the bud. We will campaign and vote against it should its proponents succeed in purchasing the
necessary number of signatures to put it on the 2010 ballot. The tax revenue it will supposedly generate is a
mere smokescreen for the kids it will regulate into three, five and seven year state prison sentences.
Perpetuating and increasing the hundred million plus tax dollars per year the state already spends
policing this harmless plant is wrong yet that is exactly what this proposition does. Surely we can do better
than this. How about just legalizing it, getting the state off pot to save lives and real money across the
board? Please consider how you can help expose and defeat this misleading “tax and regulate” initiative.
Dennis Peron,
Author of Proposition 215, the Compassionate Use Act of 1996.
3745 17th street, SFCA 94114 (415) 864 – 1961
[email protected]
Read the “tax and regulate marijuana” initiative at:
http://ag.ca.gov/cms_attachments/initiatives/pdfs/i821_initiative_09-0024_amdt_1-s.pdf
September 22, 2009
