The Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol submitted 258,582 petition signatures to the Secretary of State in late June.

According to the campaign website, only 150,642 signatures were required.

The campaign states Proposition 205 would:

• Allow adults 21 years of age and older to possess up to one ounce of marijuana and consume marijuana in private.
• Establish a regulation system similar to alcohol.
• Enact a 15% tax on marijuana sales, in addition to standard state and local sales taxes.
• Use tax revenue to fund regulation enforcement.

Proposition 205 would allocate the majority of tax revenues to schools. If passed, 40% of excess tax revenue would go toward The Department of Education for school construction, maintenance and operating costs.

It would allocate another 40% of excess revenue to The Department of Education for full-day kindergarten programs.

The remaining 20% would go toward The Department of Health Services for public education for alcohol, marijuana and substance education.

The owner of the local dispensary Purplemed Healing Center, Jean-Paul Genet, said he supports the initiative.

“I expect to see a huge leap in the standard of education in Arizona,” said Genet.

Genet said it’s going to positively impact the economy.

“It is going to provide more employment and there’s going to be more taxes collected as a result,” he said. “There will be more opportunities for business development.”

Resident, Arturo Valenzuela, said he does not think legalizing marijuana for recreational use is a good idea.

“Especially, for the people that are driving,” said Valenzuela. “I mean we already have a problem with alcohol and now legalizing this, it’s going to be even worse.”

Genet said it does pose some dilemma, but argued marijuana is nothing like alcohol.

According to the campaign website, driving while impaired by marijuana would remain illegal. Public marijuana use would also remain illegal.

The initiative would not change existing penalties for the possession of more than one ounce of marijuana.

Register to vote in the November 2016 Election

The post AZ Prop. 205 aims to legalize recreational marijuana appeared first on Pot My.

It caused a huge uproar with the people who make a living in that industry.

The Citizens for a Healthy Pueblo is the group asking for the ban, citing multiple reasons for this request. This includes concerns over how recreational marijuana is changing the community of Pueblo.

Growing Pueblo’s Future, a group of people who make their living off of different parts of the cannabis industry in Pueblo, spoke out against the Petition on Wednesday.

They said that if this ban were to come into effect, a lot of good hard working people would be impacted negatively.

“Just for our company alone I think it would hurt probably over two hundred and fifty families,” said business owner Jeff Ayotte.

He said every one of those individuals contribute to the economy of Pueblo.

“How many people go out to dinner every night? How many cars have we bought? How many houses have we bought in the county? How many kids are here,” said Ayotte.

Former Pueblo Sherrif Dan Corsentino said he supports recreational marijuana and that people should look at how sage legalization has made the industry.

“we have a regulated industry. We have an industry that is growing. It’s professional, it’s accountable and if we do it right the prosecution and law enforcement does not have to worry about the cannabis industry,” said Corsentino.

Some argued that without recreational pot, it would just open up the black market to fill the void.

“The Mexican drug cartels, they want to steal these jobs and I say we cannot let that happen. We need to protect the jobs that we have right here in pueblo,” said Pueblo County Commissioner Sal Pace.

One business owner says the way to defeat this petition is education.

“I really think we need to educate the public on what legalized regulated marijuana is. Show them the difference between illegal marijuana and regulated marijuana. We also need to educate the public on what legalized regulated marijuana is doing for our community,” said Ayotte.

The people who proposed the ban argued that the vote back in 2012 didn’t accurately represent what the people of Pueblo cCunty want and that those in rural parts of the county are extremely against recreational marijuana.

They said this issue should be decided by the voters once again.

The post Debate over recreational marijuana grows in Pueblo appeared first on Pot My.