Marijuana Decrim Headed To The Ballot In Miami Beach

Graphic: CSMP

​Miami Beach, Florida voters may get a chance to vote on decriminalizing marijuana this fall, making it the first city in South Florida to reduce the penalty for pot to a $100 fine instead of criminal charges.

Sensible Florida (Committee for Sensible Marijuana Policy), a group which works to legalize cannabis, said it has collected more than double the number of signatures needed to put the measure on the ballot, reports Tim Elfrink at Miami New Times; normally, doubling the required number all-but-ensures that enough valid names are present to qualify.

The group said it will present 9,000 signatures at Miami Beach City Hall on Wednesday, July 13.

Photo: The Lead Miami Beach

Ford Banister, Sensible Florida: “It’s a great day for the marijuana legalization movement in Florida”

​ “It’s a great day for the marijuana legalization movement in Florida,” said the group’s Chairman Ford Banister. “For the first time, Florida voters will soon decide a marijuana related question.”

Billy Corben and Alfred Spellman, the director and producer of Cocaine Cowboys and Square Grouper – a film about the South Florida marijuana trade in the 1970s and ’80s — has contributed thousands of dollars and publically backed the efforts of Sensible Florida, reports Perry Stein at The Miami Herald.

Spellman said the vote will be a chance for Miami Beach residents to decide if they want to stop pursuing a “failed war on drugs.”

“Is it in the public interest to arrest, detain and process somebody in the system for small amounts of marijuana?” asked Spellman. ”Is that what we want cops, prosecutors and investigators to be focusing on?”

Victory Rally Planned for 4:20 Wednesday, July 13, Miami Beach City Hall

If at least 4,300 of the group’s 9,000 signatures are valid, a citywide vote on the issue will take place in November.

The group is staging a victory rally at Miami Beach City Hall at 4:20 p.m. on Wednesday.

“We are working to generate a huge crowd for this historic event,” said campaign organizer Eric Stevens of Sensible Florida. “We need to get as many people as possible at the rally.”

“One of our plans is to have planes with banners flying all around Miami Beach to let people know that this is happening,” Stevens said. “Imagine how cool it would be to see a plane flying overhead announcing a marijuana rally at City Hall on Miami Beach as we work to present the voices of thousands of people who signed the petition to change the marijuana laws!”

Florida NORML, People United For Medical Marijuana (PUFMM), Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP), Sensible Florida Miami Beach, and others have all worked hard for more than a year to make this event happen, activist/Black Tuna Diaries author Robert Platshorn, one of the 1970s marijuana smugglers featured in the film Square Grouper, told Toke of the Town on Monday.

What: Rally to support petition submission to decriminalize marijuana on Miami Beach

When: July 13, 4:20 p.m.

Where: Miami Beach City Hall, 1700 Convention Center Drive (on the corner of 17th Street & Convention Center Drive)

Colorado Alliance Files Initiative To Tax And Regulate Marijuana

Graphic: Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol

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Denver-based activists have filed a ballot initiative with the Secretary of State that they say would regulate marijuana in Colorado in a manner similar to alcohol.

The Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol must now gather 86,105 signatures before August 6, 2012 to qualify for the November 2012 general election ballot.

The proposal requires the Department of Revenue to tax and regulate marijuana and directs this new revenue source to the public school capital construction assistance fund.

It would allow people 21 and older to buy and possess up to an ounce of marijuana. They would also be allowed to grow up to six plants and to possess all the marijuana produced by those plants, reports Scot Kersgaard at the Colorado Independent.

Photo: Denver Westword

Mason Tvert: “Parents should support this”

​ The initiative’s backers are long-time Colorado marijuana policy reformers Brian Vicente and Mason Tvert of the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol. Supporting the effort are SAFER Colorado, Sensible Colorado, the Marijuana Policy Project and the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA).

“Parents should support this,” Tvert said, pointing out that, under the black market, marijuana is already more available to teenagers than is alcohol. “This will shift from a prohibition paradigm to a regulation paradigm.”

“This is a very exciting time in Colorado,” Tvert said. “We are leading the way around the country by bringing forth perhaps the strongest most sensible marijuana law in perhaps the entire country.”

“This will allow the state to control the use of marijuana,” Vicente said. “It will take it out of the hands of cartels and gangsters and will move it into a strict state controlled system.”

“Once again Colorado is at the forefront of the national movement to reform our ineffective marijuana laws,” said Art Way, Colorado drug policy manager of the DPA, an organization advocating alternatives to the War On Drugs.

“The responsible regulation of marijuana is a crucial first step in undoing the harms associated with the failed drug war,” Way said.

Recent ballot initiatives and legislative advocacy in Colorado have decriminalized marijuana and established one of the most expansive medical marijuana regulatory systems in the country. Recent polling shows that more than half of the voters in Colorado support ending marijuana prohibition, while 46 percent of Americans nationwide support making marijuana legal.

A decade ago, only one in four Americans supported cannabis legalization.

A report from the Global Commission on Drug Policy released last month suggests the legalization of marijuana as an affirmative step to end failed drug policies that fuel a violent black market.

Marijuana is at the center of the U.S. Drug War, as more than 800,000 Americans are arrested for marijuana offenses each year and are subsequently labeled as criminals, overwhelmingly due to low-level possession for personal use.

“Our wasteful, punitive marijuana laws sustain a massive, increasingly violent underground economy, make criminals out of millions of otherwise law-abiding citizens, waste scarce law enforcement resources, and rob taxpayers of billions in potential revenue,” Way said. “Whether by the hand of lawmakers or a fed-up electorate, these laws are going to change.

An opposing group, calling itself Legalize 2012, says the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol wouldn’t really legalize marijuana. Even as the Campaign was holding its press conference in downtown Denver, Legalize 2012 was handing out info sheets detailing what they believe is wrong with the proposal.

The flyer referred to the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol as a “sentencing reform initiative,” because possession of more than an ounce of pot would remain illegal and subject people to arrest. One of the leaders of Legalize 2012, Laura Kriho, actually referred to Tvert as “my opponent” in a recent public appearance, reports the Colorado Independent.

Portland Aims to End Marijuana Arrests in Oregon City

Sensible Portland Aims To End Marijuana Arrests In Oregon City

Graphic: Sensible Portland

​A group of concerned citizens in Portland, Oregon is trying to pass an ordinance making marijuana possession the lowest enforcement priority for police, with no arrest required.

Sensible Portland turned in petitions with more than 2,000 signatures to the city clerk on Tuesday morning, reports WGME. In order to put the question before voters on the November ballot, 1,500 valid signatures are needed.

The proposed ordinance also requires Portland’s mayor to report to the City Council on marijuana arrests by the police, reports Caroline Cornish at WCSH 6.

Officers wouldn’t face any penalty if they violated the ordinance, and the language specifically states that it’s not intended to prohibit police from working with federal drug enforcement agents.

But Sensible Portland said it’s important for voters to go on the record about this issue, since the federal government said it plants to crack down on even medical marijuana users.

The group also hopes the proposed ordinance will eventually help lead to a discussion about legalizing marijuana.

If at least 1,500 of the 2,114 signatures turned in on Tuesday are valid, the proposal will go to the Portland City Council. The council will hold a public hearing, after which it can either enact the proposal, or put it before the voters in November.

The council can also put its own alternative plan before the voters at the same time.

Tags: lowest enforcement priority, ordinance, sensible portland