The 2016 cannabis legalization efforts are in full swing. For decades peaceful people who enjoy cannabis, along with those who need it medically, have been systematically persecuted and prosecuted for, at times, nothing more than simply possessing small amounts of marijuana. It seems that our forefathers have left us in a hope deprived cycle that leaves our citizens incarcerated, with lives ruined, simply because they ingest a plant.
We have witnessed whole generations of our youth left without options. Having an arrest or conviction for marijuana, no matter how trivial, can leave you unemployable. A life smote upon the rocks of justice, never again to obtain that full steam ahead life approach that has been crushed with mountains of debt and fines and a new found sense of the profound absence of justice that is part and parcel of the war on weed and goes hand in hand with our financially challenged communities.
Earlier this month, Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation that bans hospitals from denying organ transplants based on a patient’s marijuana usage. A policy in place for many years that discriminated against people who tested positive for marijuana thereby excluding them from a life saving organ transplant, even those who were organ donors. This along with many other policies is just another example of the discrimination that the cannabis community faces on a daily basis.
A prevalent 420 culture, the landmark date and time of cannabis connoisseurs, is developing a more mainstream presence in California in the wake of other states’ marijuana legalization.
ReformCA.org, a part of the Coalition for Cannabis Policy Reform (http://www.cannabispolicyreform.org), will announce today a ballot initiative filing with the Attorney General’s office in the next few weeks to legalize marijuana.
The organization has held statewide roundtables and meetings with legislators, experts and ordinary citizens in order to draft the proposed regulations and include everyone in the process. ReformCA.org is also seeking financial support and the support of the people in an effort to right the ship of injustice.
The CCPR Board of Directors include Dale Sky Jones, an advocate and prominent spokesperson supporting Proposition 19, and Dale Gieringer, the state coordinator of California National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML.com)
ReformCA.org hopes to reform the current failed policies with clear, well vetted regulations that take the current policies into account and addresses the concerns of all sides.
Taxation on cannabis will no doubt be part of those regulations A Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) poll this year showed more than half of voters favor legalization.