Effort to Legalize and Tax Marijuana Gets Greenlight

Backers of an initiative to legalize marijuana and create an office and commission to license and regulate the marijuana industry have received authorization to begin gathering signatures, Secretary of State Alex Padilla announced today.

What its backers have dubbed “The Control, Regulate and Tax Cannabis Act of 2016” would impose state taxes of $2 per square foot of marijuana cultivation, $1 to $15 per ounce of marijuana production, 10 percent of the retail sales price for edible marijuana products and concentrated extracts, and 5 percent for other retail sales, along with an additional 5 percent local tax on retail sales.

Medical marijuana would be exempt from some taxation.

The initiative would authorize the resentencing and destruction of criminal records for prior marijuana convictions. It would also allow limited local regulation of marijuana and eases state restrictions on industrial hemp farming.

Passage of the initiative would result in additional state and local tax revenues potentially ranging from the high hundreds of millions of dollars to over $1 billion annually, according to an analysis made by the Legislative Analyst’s Office and Department of Finance.

Most of the tax revenue generated would be required to be spent for specific purposes, such as education, environmental protection, marijuana- related research and substance abuse treatment.

The analysis also found there would be net reduced costs ranging from tens of millions of dollars to potentially exceeding $100 million annually to state and local governments related to enforcing certain marijuana-related offenses, handling the related criminal cases in the court system and incarcerating and supervising certain marijuana offenders.

Valid signatures from 365,880 registered voters -- 5 percent of the total votes cast for governor in the 2014 general election -- must be submitted by June 6 to qualify the measure for the November 2016 ballot, according to Padilla.

The initiative is the 10th in circulation seeking to legalize marijuana.

City News Service; Patch file photo