Voters in California will likely decide this November whether or not to legalize marijuana, after legalization activists handed in far more than the necessary number of petition signatures to get the measure onto the ballot.
Organizers of the Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010 filed some 700,000 petition signatures with county clerks around the state. The amount of signatures needed to get the measure on the ballot is about 433,000, reports the San Francisco Chronicle, so the measure is all but certain to be on the ballot in November.
If California voters approve, it will be the most comprehensive reform of marijuana laws ever undertaken in the United States. While some states, such as Oregon, have relatively lax penalties for possession, no state has attempted to regulate and tax the herb before.
The measure’s chances are good: A poll taken last April found that 56 percent of Californians want to see the herb legalized and taxed.
According to the L.A. Times, the measure would make it legal for anyone over 21 to own an ounce or less of pot, and to grow pot for personal use in a space no larger than 25 square feet. It would also give cities the right to license marijuana growers and sellers, and to collect taxes on the crop.
[From Pot legalization almost certainly headed for California ballot | Raw Story]
Marijuana will be legalized in the next 5-10 years tops.