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California Will Vote on Recreational Cannabis this November!

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The leading recreational initiative, the Adult Use of Marijuana Act (AUMA), officially qualified for the November 8 ballot in California. The Secretary of State’s Office certified the number of signatures Tuesday.

AUMA needed 402,000 signatures in order to qualify. The official count easily topped 600,000 signatures. Should AUMA pass, one in six Americans will live in a state where cannabis is legal.

“Today marks a fresh start for California as we prepare to replace the costly, harmful and ineffective system of prohibition with a safe, legal and responsible adult-use marijuana system that gets it right and completely pays for itself,” said Jason Kinney, a spokesman for California’s Adult Use of Marijuana Act.

Both Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom and former Facebook President Sean Parker endorsed and fueled the initiative. A total of $3.7 million was raised, with the largest personal donation coming from Parker himself.

Per the initiative, adults over the age of 21 would be allowed to possess an ounce of cannabis as well as six plants. This isn’t the first time a recreational bill has been introduced in California. That would be Proposition 19, which was defeated in 2010. “This is six years later. We’ve already seen legalization pass and be successful in other states. So it’s a different world in talking about this issue than it was,” said Taylor West of the National Cannabis Industry Association.

Law enforcement agencies, health groups and others that would be disadvantaged by the prospect of legal cannabis, have come together to raise $125,000 for the opposition. Other opposition comes from within the industry. AUMA, they believe, will regulate cannabis more successfully than Schedule II and increase the price of cannabis statewide.

California joins Nevada and Maine, who will also be voting on recreational cannabis this fall.

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