LEGALIZED POT IN CALIFORNIA NO LONGER JUST A PIPE DREAM

Word that a California voter initiative to legalize marijuana for
recreational use has qualified for the November ballot had people
taking a deep breath Wednesday, even people who had never inhaled before.

"Terrible!" Bill Spiegel, a 77-year-old grandfather who lives in
Woodland Hills, said after hearing the news at a local shopping center.

"I think it's foolish," Spiegel said. "I think it's sickening. We have
too many problems ... as it is."

But the initiative to legalize pot - and potentially tax it - sounded
OK to Andrea Cobby, a 41-year-old stay-at-home mother of two from Tarzana.

"Why should the wrong people be making money on something that doesn't
hurt anybody?" Cobby said. "Drinking is so much worse (than
marijuana). People drink and drive and kill each other. When you smoke
pot, you go too slow to kill someone."

Others were hazier on the pluses and minuses of the initiative known
as the Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010.

"I think anything the state can do to generate funds to help us with
our budget is an interesting concept," said Stuart Waldman, president
of the Valley Industry & Commerce Association. "Instead of having a
bake sale, I guess the state will be having a brownie sale."

Saying he was speaking only for himself, not stating a position for
VICA, Waldman said the state can't "just legalize it and turn this
into the Wild West" but should balance the effects of loosening pot
laws by directing funds to diversion programs for drug abusers.

Waldman said if proponents want to win over average voters, they
should emphasize the potential boon to financially strapped local
governments.

The measure's qualification for the Nov. 2 ballot was certified
Wednesday after Los Angeles became the final county to turn in its
tally of petition signatures to the California Secretary of State,
pushing the statewide count to 694,248 - far more than the 433,971
required.

The Secretary of State's office said random sampling confirmed that
enough of the signatures would be valid.

Supporters tout a 2009 poll showing 56 percent of Californians favor
decriminalization of marijuana, in a state that legalized use of weed
for medical purposes in a 1996 ballot measure.

The new measure would decriminalize cultivation and possession of
small amounts of marijuana for personal use by adults 21 and older,
while barring its use in public, on school grounds and in the presence
of minors.

The measure also would authorize city and county governments to
regulate and tax marijuana sales - or prohibit sales entirely.

The initiative's qualification for the state ballot comes two months
after legislation with similar aims was approved by a California
Assembly committee before wheezing to a stop in another committee.

Analysts said pot legalization is more likely to happen through the
ballot box than in the Legislature because the issue is too hot for
politicians.

Law-enforcement officials have opposed loosening drug laws. The Los
Angeles Police Department declined comment Wednesday.

Los Angeles City Councilman Dennis Zine, a retired police officer,
said the assertion that taxing marijuana can bail out cities and
counties is a "ruse."

"I don't think it's going to generate much money, to be honest with
you," Zine said. "If you can grow your own, how is that going to be
taxed?"

Zine, who pushed Los Angeles' moratorium on new medical-marijuana
dispensaries, said the state's acceptance for therapeutic pot use
"opens the door" for tolerance of general use.

"This is the classic example of a slippery slope," Zine said. "I know
the (crime) problems we've had with the medical marijuana facilities
in our communities. ... We have alcohol taxed and regulated, but still
you have people who drink and drive and kill people on the highway.
You have teens who are addicted."

Medical-marijuana advocates generally have not joined broader
legalization efforts, but say they monitor the possible impacts on
medicinal users.

A 22-year-old Sherman Oaks resident who identified himself only as Moe
said Wednesday he would vote for the initiative.

"I believe it's been a long time, and I'm glad it's come to this
point," he said. "(Legalization) has become a movement because it's
underground.

"It's an epidemic across high-school campuses. It might be easier to
regulate it if it's not in the hands of drug dealers."

He said if marijuana became legal, he'd be more likely to smoke it.
But he probably wouldn't grow it; he watched a TV program about
growing marijuana, and it looked like a lot of work.