California's Inalienable Rights Enforcement Initiative

Whatever happened to STATE'S RIGHTS? We're TAKING THEM BACK, that's what. Please do read the LAO analysis of The California Inalienable Rights Enforcement Initiative (A.G. File No. 08‑0009) in its entirety right now. It's short, but could be pivotal in the the century long history of our struggle.

Our regular readers know that I don't ever insist on reading right now unless it is vitally essential. Please, do read it right now. It's not that long and by writing to your congress person to support this key legislation and then VOTING to support this measure, we will strike a major blow against the Totalitarian Prohibition Regime. Excerpt:

March 24, 2008

Pursuant to Elections Code Section 9005, [the California Legislative Analyst's Office has] reviewed the proposed initiative cited as the “The Inalienable Rights Enforcement Initiative” (A.G. File No. 08‑0009). The initiative amends the State Constitution and adds Section 32 that allows, with certain restrictions, the legal cultivation, possession, transportation, sale, and use of marijuana.

Given that the federal government continues to enforce [utterly backward] federal marijuana laws after the passage of California's Proposition 215, which allowed marijuana use for medicinal purposes, it is likely that enforcement of federal marijuana laws would continue if this measure is enacted. As such, any revenues and expenditures generated by this measure would be subject to significant uncertainty. The measure would have the following major fiscal effects:

• Potential savings of up to several tens of millions of dollars annually to state and local governments, which would no longer incur the costs of incarcerating and supervising certain marijuana offenders.
• Potential costs of up to the tens of millions of dollars to state and local governments to fund the one-time start-up costs of the IREBs.
• A potentially significant increase in state and local spending on substance abuse treatment services that could possibly be partially or fully offset by revenues from this measure.
• Potential increased revenues in the tens of millions to low hundreds of millions of dollars annually from marijuana stamps and licenses to support specified programs and the IREBs.
• Unknown but potentially significant increase in state and local revenues from collection of SUT on the sale of Marijuana.
• Unknown but potentially significant decrease in state and local revenues from taxes on tobacco and alcohol due to a prohibition of advertising for these goods that would likely result in a decline in sales.