Petitioners collected hundreds of enthusiastic EC students’ signatures last week for the ballot initiative, that will legalize, tax and regulate marijuana.
“Being able to sell marijuana in stores is not the prime goal of getting this initiative passed, it’s not just so you could smoke weed. It ensures the right to posses, cultivate and transport marijuana for people over the age of 21,” Kevin Smeyer, a petitioner at EC employed by the Secretary of State’s Office said.
Seymer also said, that if they legalized marijuana, people incarcerated for non-violent drug offenses will have their charges dropped.
He said it will also help the California budget save $1.2 billion a year otherwise spent to house incarcerated nonviolent offenders.
On average, Smeyer said he gets more than 30 signatures an hour from students who identify with the recent Field Poll data stating that 56 percent of registered California voters are in favor of the legalization and the taxation of marijuana.
“Some people are for it, some people are not. The people against it don’t really understand, they think we’re trying to legalize marijuana so more potheads can be on the streets but they arent thinking about all the aspects of it. It’ll help the California budget,” Smeyer said.
According to the Drug Policy Alliance Network Web site, the tax on marijuana would “Generate an estimated $1.3 billion in new revenue, redirect hundreds of millions of scarce law enforcement dollars to matters of real public safety,. It will also reduce teen access to marijuana through strict controls and penalties on sales to minors, and significantly undermine violent cartels that rely on illegal marijuana for the majority of their income.”
However some students are indecisive about the proposal and still see marijuana as a substance that is another problem in the making.
“I’m not completely decided on it yet, there’s benefits and disadvantages on both sides,”Maryam Ilkhani, accounting major, 20. “said.
“Legalizing something that’s harmful, will lead to legalizing something else that’s harmful although it should be available at least for medicinal reasons,”
Seymer also said the initiative comes at a time when more than 800 medical marijuana dispensaries in Los Angeles are thriving with new business daily while California’s budget gap is unprecedented and heavily affecting the efficiency of vital infrastructures.
“Its important to get this measure on the ballot because the district attorney has plans of prosecuting all L.A. dispensaries and if they all get shut down, where will patients get their medicine?” said Grissel Lopez, major undecided.