The next underdog marijuana legalization initiative is out of the gate as the group Safer Arizona filed their vision of recreational marijuana on Feb. 16.
Similar to Prop 205, the Safer Arizona Cannabis Legalization Act would legalize recreational marijuana for adults over the age of 21, and that’s where the similarities end.
The act would remove any criminal penalty for the possession of marijuana, with no limit on possession amounts, and retroactively resentence those convicted and in jail for marijuana crimes right now.
The act also restricts any taxation beyond sales tax, revenue from which would benefit K-12 schools, limits local municipalities’ control over marijuana, allows 48 plants for cultivation at home and lets any licensed retailer sell marijuana.
Finally, it would have marijuana regulated under the Department of Agriculture as opposed to Prop 205’s marijuana commission, resulting the plant being treated more like—well, a plant—than a drug or other controlled substance.
Already we can see why Safer Arizona may have a tough road to the ballot. Much of Prop 205’s eligibility can be granted to the appeasements it made to detractors of pot prohibition repeal.
Many of Prop 205’s provisions were clear attempts to gain wide support outside of the clearly pro-legalization crowd.
We could see this with the proposed Department of Marijuana and the Marijuana commission, the wide berth of control given to municipalities and restrictions on who could enter the market when.
However, the plan backfired, as these were the exact components that many pro-legalization voters ended up saying “no” to.
But it’s not just Safer Arizona’s laundry list of ideal implementation that may be a source of trouble for the initiative. Prop 205’s coincidence with a presidential election year was no mistake.
For big-ticket ballot measures, backers usually plan for a year when they know voter turnout will be at its peak, which typically occurs every four years with the election of our president.
Safer Arizona has decided to file in an off year, meaning they’ll have to be much more considerate of the expenditure of their resources if they’re going to make an impact.
Last year, the Prop 205 campaign spent just above $6.5 million on the campaign, and they needed it too. The campaign against Prop 205 accumulated just under $6.4 million, and anti-legalization propaganda filled the airwaves and our newsfeed.
Against those types of resources, Safer Arizona isn’t the giant in this David and Goliath tale. It remains unseen what sort of resources the group can muster, but $6.5 million in an off-election year is challenging if not entirely unlikely.
Still, marijuana proponents have little to worry about with the passage of this initiative. It’d be the most extensive deregulation of marijuana compared to any other legalization law in the country. Arizona would become the land where weed flows like wine.
The group is well poised to achieve their first task: collecting 150,642 ballot signatures by July 5, 2018. With a year and a half to go, the goal certainly seems attainable, but Safer Arizona is far from the finish line.
This article appears in Feb 23 – Mar 1, 2017.
Thanks Nick Meyers;
I have been watching this is going to be interesting. With the legislature and HB2404 might get one part of the attempt to change the rule by making more stringent rules by paid signature gathers. Register & classes and no out of state 501(c)3 able to hire or contribute. GOODBYE MPP
So lets look at Safer and Dave David Stephen Wisniewski. I can see a of lot of holes in the boat. The one take not mentioned Dave and his crew of grassroots volunteers of signatures and the ability to amend the initiative along the way give Safer AZ viability. Really Safer is the ONLY consumer advocate marijuana users have that is now making any impact.
It will need to be amended to a grievance process with Kathy Inman and amend to palatable to both it now has the need to become symbiotic relationship.
It is either this or the legislature not wanting the possibility of a voter mandated initiative on legalization. This session push the rules see what passes, is action that will be taken next year. Then before the legalization effort gains steam on a midterm election turnout.. The legislature definitely does not want a rouge government department “DEPARTMENT OF MARIJUANA LICENSE AND CONTROLS”
The legislature might legalize small amounts and set it up like CO or WA. with the 3 plant rule no special license can buy clones. If this happens both are outside looking at what might have been.
There were several reasons why Prop 205 failed. The biggest detractor for me was the semi-monopoly it gave the current medical dispensaries and growers.
The Safer Arizona initiative goes too far in the other direction. Arizona voters will not go for a free-for-all, and they shouldn’t.
Free market, not free-for-all. This initiative doesn’t give a free pass to people being reckless and has reasonable penalties and restrictions that are based on scientific evidence instead of the profit driven prohibition propaganda that has misled the public and oppressed the lower and middle classes.
Why aren’t these unconstitutional and racist drug war on the people mal prohibita laws ever called out for what they truly are, a matter of personal freedom?
The cops, courts and local governments are ENSLAVING US FOR THEIR PERSONAL GAIN, yet no one tells this to their faces when these pigs at the taxpayer trough intimidate us into giving them more govt welfare. Anyone who wears a badge is complicit in slavery and they dawn well know it to be true but will never change cuz the money is too good. Hypocrites, all of them. Every day these evil laws to enslave and steal from us isn’t repealed is proof that govt is your enemy.