An initiative to control and tax marijuana was certified Wednesday by California's Secretary of State Debra Bowen for inclusion on the November 2 state ballot. It could make California the first state to relegalize marijuana.

The initiative effort was led by Richard Lee, operator of a medical marijuana dispensary and Oaksterdam University in Oakland, California. "Tax Cannabis 2010 does two things," Lee says. "First of all, it allows adults 21 and over in California to posses and cultivate small amounts of cannabis for their own personal consumption. Second, it allows cities and counties in California to tax and regulate sales and commercial cultivation how they want to, and if they want to."

Possession would be limited to one ounce of marijuana and cultivation could not exceed 25 square feet of garden space. The measure also prohibits possession of marijuana on the grounds of any school, using it in public, smoking it while minors are present, or providing it to anyone under 21 years of age. It also specifically maintains the current prohibitions of driving while impaired.

The initiative effort was also supported by the Drug Policy Alliance, whose California director, Stephen Gutwillig, says "This is a watershed moment. Banning marijuana outright has been a disaster, fueling a massive, increasingly brutal underground economy, wasting billions in scarce law enforcement resources, and making criminals out of countless law-abiding citizens."

Aaron Smith, California Policy Director for the Marijuana Policy Project, believes the initiative not only will pass but that it will cause a ripple effect across the nation. "California is often a leader in these types of bold policy changes," he says. "This will have an effect across the Western US first and then the Eastern states just like we saw with the passage of medical marijuana 13 years ago. I think we are at a tipping point and this will happen even faster."

Proponents' confidence that the initiative will pass is supported by a 2009 Field Poll that found 56 percent of Californians to be in favor making marijuana legal for social use and taxing the sales proceeds, as provided in the initiative. Nationally, the Gallup Poll found last October that 44 percent of Americans favored legalization of marijuana.

"In California, this is a $14 billon industry that is going completely untaxed" says the MPP's Aaron Smith. Relegalization of marijuana, he argues "will create tens of thousands of jobs and bring in over $1 billon in annual revenue. That is hard to ignore."

Smith also points to the high cost of arresting and incarcerating marijuana users at the expense of real threats to the public safety. "We are spending a fortune in our efforts to police consensual adult behavior while there are other important issues of public safety that need to be addressed," he says.

Opponents of the measure, such as Steve Steiner, founder of Dads and Moms Against Drug Dealers, don't believe that the economic benefits of the measure outweigh what they see as the moral message of ending marijuana prohibition. "Budget holes don’t justify legalizing pot," he says. "Taxing our youth to balance the budget doesn’t make sense." Bishop Ron Allen, a former crack addict who is pastor of Sacramento's Greater Solomon Temple Community Church and president of the International Faith-Based Coalition, predicts that "angry church leaders" will do "whatever it is going to take to fight this to the very end."

John Lovell, a professional lobbyist who represents the California Peace Officers' Association, California Police Chiefs' Association, and California Narcotic Officers Association, is also unimpressed by the economic argument for the initiative. “We get revenue from alcohol,” he says, “but there’s way more in social costs than we retain in revenues. . . . The fact is that you can't make a case for legalization of another mind-altering substance."

The reality, however, is that marijuana doesn't present the same potential for social costs that alcohol does. The public costs associated with alcohol are principally a result of alcohol's pharmacological effect of increasing aggression and violent behavior, something marijuana simply does not do. Marijuana, like alcohol, does impair driving ability but while alcohol tends to result in reckless, aggressive, fast driving, drivers under the influence of marijuana are more likely to drive slowly and show excessive caution that makes them more an obstruction to traffic than a threat of accidents. See "Marijuana and Driving" at Drugs and the Whole Person.