A similar bill, approved last year by the General Assembly, was allowed to die after Gov Bruce Rauner used his amendatory veto powers to propose tighter restrictions. The new bill, sponsored by Sen. Heather Steans, D-Chicago, and approved Wednesday by the Senate Criminal Law Committee, incorporates the changes Rauner suggested.

Those include lowering the threshold for being ticketed rather than arrested for marijuana possession for quantities up to 10 grams. The original bill set the threshold at 15 grams, equal to about 30 joints.

The new bill also raises the range for fines to $100 to $200 from $55 to $125 and lowers the limit at which someone can be charged with driving under the influence of marijuana. Last year’s bill put the limit at 15 nanograms per milliliter blood, and the new measure would set it at five nanograms, the level Rauner suggested in his veto message.

Steans said the bill is aimed at “providing more consistent and fair enforcement and prosecution and cannabis possession across the state.”

The measure would also automatically expunge marijuana possession citations from people’s records every six months. It would not supersede local laws enacting fines for marijuana possession.

An assistant state’s attorney from Cook County, Brandon Nemec, said prosecutors support the measure.

“It’s very much a resource-based rationale for why we support this legislation,” Nemec said. “All too often, particularly in Cook County, we have a situation where an individual is arrested for a small amount of cannabis, they are sought to appear before a court, and the case is dismissed.”

These situations use up resources that could be better spent investigating and prosecuting high-lever drug crimes and violent offenses and “put someone into the criminal justice system with an arrest on their record,” he said.

One of the three Republicans who voted against the bill, is Sen. Dale Righter, R-Mattoon.

Sen. Dale Righter, R-Mattoon, was one of the three Republicans on the committee who voted against the bill.

Righter, a former prosecutor, said he has questions about whether the legal system would still be able direct people who need it into drug treatment and how circuit court clerks would handle expungements.

Ralph Rivera of the Illinois Family Institute testified at the committee hearing that he shares the concern about people getting the intervention or treatment they need.

“We’re always concerned about what message it is for the youth,” he said.

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Supporters of a voter initiative for marijuana legalization in the state of Maine, failed to collect enough valid signatures to qualify for the state ballot.

Petition gatherers for the initiative delivered 51,543 valid signatures – about 9,500 below the threshold, according to the Maine Secretary of State office on Wednesday. However, he office found 47,686 invalid signatures.

Wednesday was the deadline for the Secretary of State office to validate the signatures. After a casino proposal was denied, and a school funding measure was approved, the failure of the marijuana initiative was the biggest surprise of the day. On February 1, the marijuana campaign had delivered more than 99,000 signatures.

Manager of the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol, David Boyer, said documents provided by the Secretary of State’s office indicate that more than 17,000 signatures from a single notary were invalidated because the notary’s signature did match the signatures on file.

“We will look at all the options to challenge this,” he said. “We don’t want 17,000 people to be disenfranchised because of a handwriting technicality.”

Rep. Diane Russel, D-Portland,a supporter, said the group will appeal because people deserve a chance to vote on the issue.

She said, “This is about voting rights at its fundamental core, not legalization.”

The campaign now has 10 days to appeal.

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At this moment it looks as though Mainers will be voting on legalization in November. The Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol turned in more than 103,000 raw signatures for its petition drive. It only need 61,000 valid voter signatures in order to qualify for the November ballot but it’s nearly double.

As a general rule of thumb, initiative and referendum experts counsel petitioners to expect a certain percentage of raw signatures to be deemed invalid , but that figure is usually put around 25% to 30%. In order for this petition to fill, more than 40% of the votes would have to be found invalid. It might not be impossible, but it’s very unlikely that almost half of those votes could be invalid.

According to a poll last spring managed by Critical Insights, a Portland marketing firm, a staggering 65% of Mainers support legalizing the weed, with 79% saying it should be sold in licensed establishments.

The initiative would allow people of 21 or over possess up to 2.5 ounces of pot and grow a limited number of plants in their homes. It would also set up the framework for a tightly regulated system of licensed marijuana retail stores, cultivation facilities, product-manufacturing facilities, and testing facilities. It will also create rules governing the cultivation, testing, transportation, and sale of marijuana. The initiative would enact a 10% tax on marijuana sales.

“This initiative will replace the underground marijuana market with a tightly controlled system of legitimate, taxpaying businesses that create good jobs for Maine residents,” Boyer said. “It will also make Maine safer by allowing enforcement officials to spend more time addressing serious crimes instead of enforcing failed marijuana prohibition laws.”

State Rep. Diane Russel (D-Portland), a long-time legalization supporter, said at a Monday press conference that Maine is ready to take marijuana “out of the shadows and out of the black market.” She scolded the legislature for refusing to act on legalization, but claimed the state’s medical marijuana program pointed in the right direction. “It tells people we were right all long,” she said. “Maine people really do want a rational policy around drug use. Maine has proven we can regulate marijuana responsibly.”

The push for legalization in Maine got of to a bumpy start, with two initiative campaigns that were competing against each other, but the activists were able to overcome acrimony and merge the two campaigns, leading to the unified effort that appears to walk the state down the path to legalization.

So far, only four states; Alaska, Colorado, Oregon, and Washington – all in the west, have legalized it. Washington, DC, legalized possession and cultivation, but not sales and distribution. If the initiative makes the ballot and passes, Maine will become the first state east of the Mississippi to legalize it.

However, Vermont is moving toward legalization through the legislative process. That bill has won a first committee vote, but its prospects for passage this year are uncertain. Massachusetts could well end up voting for legalization this year as well. Whether is is Maine, Vermont or Massachusetts,a combination of the above, New England is becoming a real hotbed for reefer reform this year.

The post Maine joins list of states to vote on marijuana legalization this year appeared first on Pot My.

The initiative would ask Arizona voters to legalize marijuana for recreational use and establish a network of licensed cannabis shops where sales of the drug would be taxed.

The “Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol” is only a few thousand signatures away of gathering the 150,642 signatures it needs to qualify for the ballot, according to spokesman Barrett Marson on Wednesday. He also said that some signatures are likely invalid as it could be collected from people who cannot vote and the group aims to collect about 225,000 signatures.

Marson added: “Arizonans are clearly excited about this initiative.”

Many other individuals and groups are not so pleased about the initiative, including a group that has been educating the public about the negative effects of pot on children and society. The 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 as a leading state of the nation regarding past-month cannabis use following its successful legalization in 2012.

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

It would also create a legal distribution system that is similar to Colorado’s, where licenses businesses produce and sell marijuana.

The initiative would create a Department of marijuana Licenses and Control to regulate the “cultivation, manufacturing, testing, transportation, and sale of marijuana”. Local governments would be given the authority to regulate and ban cannabis stores. It would also establish a 15% tax on retail sales,with proceeds being used to fund education, including full-day kindergarten and public health.

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

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

Revenue from these taxes could not flow into the state’s general fun, allowing it to be utilized for other purposes.

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The initiative gained the support of Democratic Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom and the Coalition for Cannabis Policy Reform. Antonia Gonzales, who is the coalition board member and president of the Latino Voter League, said the coalition withdrew its rival initiative after Parker’s measure was modified to protect children, workers and small businesses.

The move ends weeks of behind-the-scenes negotiations aimed at closing the gaps between the initiatives, amid concerns that neither would succeed if both of them wound up for the ballot for 2016.

Marijuana use is illegal under federal law in the United States but 23 states allow pot to be used for medical purposes. Colorado, Washington and Oregon have recently approved recreations use and Alaska is set to follow them next year.

Voters is Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada and Arizona could face ballot initiatives next year for marijuana legalization.

In California, the amendments filed this week to Parker’s proposal would allow local governments a greater say in where marijuana can be sold, toughen protections for children, including a ban on marketing to minors and explicit warning labels on marijuana products, and require safety standards and enforcement of labor laws for people who live in the industry.

Proponents say that the measure would tax marijuana sales and cultivation, raising hundreds of millions of dollars for the state.

According thing the research group IBIS World, California has the largest market place for medical marijuana sales in the United States. The company says it is expected that recreational and medical marijuana sales will bring in $3.6 billion nationwide in 2015, growing to $13.4 billion over the next five years.

Public opinion is shifting in favor of marijuana legalization, after an initiative failed in California in 2010.

Parker’s measure would legalize recreational marijuana use for adults over 21 and set up a framework for regulating and taxing sales.

Campaign finance records do not show any contributions on Wednesday but Parker’s deep pockets suggest that his initiative will be well-funded.

In 2010 supporters invested $3.5 million in Proposition 19, outspending opponents nearly 8-1. But the measure failed amid concerns that it did not protect children or guard against driving under the influence.

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