Pot legalization campaign appears headed for Ariz. ballot

PHOENIX — The campaign to legalize marijuana for recreational use in Arizona has gathered more than 200,000 signatures in its effort to qualify for the November ballot, it reported Tuesday.

The Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol, which has been pushing the effort for about a year, needs 150,642 signatures from registered voters to make the ballot. Some of the gathered signatures may be invalid because they were signed by people who cannot vote.

To account for invalid signatures, the group aims to collect about 225,000 signatures, a spokesman said, and hopes to have a healthy cushion once the signatures are verified by the Secretary of State's Office. Barrett Marson, a campaign spokesman, could not say when those signatures would be filed with that office.

J.P. Holyoak, chairman of the campaign, said the signature count shows the level of public support to tax and regulate the drug.

"The policies of prohibition have been an abysmal failure," said Holyoak. "Legalization is inevitable. They're glad to sign on the bottom line to get this on the ballot."

What legalization would look like

Under the proposed Regulation and Taxation of Marijuana Act, adults 21 and older could possess up to 1 ounce of marijuana and grow up to six plants in their homes without obtaining licenses, as long as the plants are in a secure area.

It also would create a distribution system similar to Colorado's, where licensed businesses produce and sell marijuana.

The initiative also would create a Department of Marijuana Licenses and Control to regulate the "cultivation, manufacturing, testing, transportation, and sale of marijuana" and would give local governments the authority to regulate and ban marijuana stores. It also would establish a 15% tax on retail sales, with proceeds going to fund education, including full-day kindergarten and public health.

Under the 2016 Arizona initiative language, driving while impaired by marijuana would remain illegal, as would consuming marijuana in public and selling or giving the drug to anyone under 21.

Taxation of the program would pay the state's cost of implementing and enforcing the initiative. Forty percent of the taxes on marijuana would be directed to the Department of Education for construction, maintenance and operation costs, including salaries of K-12 teachers. Another 40% would be set aside for full-day kindergarten programs. And 20% would go to the state Department of Health Services for unspecified uses.

Revenue from the taxes could not flow into the state's general fund, which would allow it to be spent for other purposes.

Opponents say legalization will harm Arizona

One anti-legalization campaign has been hammering on the harms of the drug to children and society. Arizonans for Responsible Drug Policy has pointed to news articles and statistics and a new U.S. Department of Health and Human Services survey that shows Colorado leads the nation in past-month marijuana use following its legalization of the drug in 2012.

That group is spearheaded by Yavapai County Attorney Sheila Polk and radio host Seth Leibsohn, who have been appearing at public meetings and debates to argue against legalization.

"The more Arizonans read the initiative, the more they will see it as one, long, bill full of legalese that benefits a handful of individuals while upending decades of serious and hard substance abuse prevention work, all to make more available an ever-increasingly dangerous drug that will harm more of our youth," Leibsohn wrote in a statement Tuesday. "The costs of going forward with this initiative will be untold expenses in treatment, rehabilitation, accidents, enforcement, criminal violations, and true education deficits. No Arizonan can seriously want that."

Four states — Alaska, Colorado, Oregon and Washington — plus Washington, D.C., have legalized recreational marijuana use, while 23 states and the District have legalized some form of medical marijuana use.

Contributing: Trevor Hughes, Paste BN. Follow Yvonne Wingett Sanchez on Twitter: @yvonnewingett