California’s Recreational Initiatives Take Shape

[dropcap class=”kp-dropcap”]T[/dropcap]he Control, Regulate and Tax Adult Use of Marijuana Act has been drafted and is gaining support from a slew of billionaires including Facebook’s Sean Parker. Unlike Proposition 19, which failed in 2010, the new measure will be funded generously by funders including Nick and Joby Pritzker, Justin Hartfield, Graham Boyd. There are 17 known groups in California submitting recreational ballot measures in 2016, however, the afformentioned bill is highly expected to pass.

See below for details of the new bill:

• People will be allowed to grow up to six plants in their home for nonmedical use, but they “have to be out of public view and secure from children.” Local governments may ban outdoor home cultivation, and employers will be able to bar the use of nonmedical weed by their workers.
• It places a 15 percent excise tax on all retail sales of cannabis, both nonmedical and medical. However, medical marijuana patients won’t have to pay regular sales taxes.
• It will keep in place the new state laws governing medicinal cannabis, noting that “to help get the market up and running, existing medical marijuana businesses will get priority for the new (recreational sales) licenses.”
• It taxes licensed marijuana growers, based on the weight of the plants. The rates are $9.25 per ounce of marijuana flowers and $2.75 per ounce of marijuana leaves.
• It allows those convicted of marijuana crimes “that are no longer crimes or have been reduced to petition a court for penalty reductions or record expungement.”
• It directs tax revenue to a newly created California Marijuana Tax Fund. The fund will give $10 million annually through 2028 to a public university in California to research and evaluate the effects of the new legalization measure. It also will give $3 million annually to the California Highway Patrol to “develop protocols and best practices to determine if a driver is under the influence of marijuana.”

The revenue that would be generated would also go to business development, drug prevention, law enforcement, and environmental regulation. The new proposal has several key differences than the Reform CA initiative.