CAMPAIGN UPDATE: Volunteer Petition Drive Picks Up Momentum
Regulate Marijuana Like Wine - 2012 | PH: 916-520-4208
Thanks to our partners, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, who donated a booth for our volunteer petitioners, we made a noticeable impact at the Kush Expo in Anaheim last weekend. Not counting the doctor there providing exams, we were, by far, the most popular booth at the show. The booths around us prospered from the crowd we drew in. There was always a small crowd checking out their wares as they waited for a board for their county to free up or their friend to finish a voter registration form. Nearly 1,000 signatures were collected that weekend, just from our LEAP booth. Meanwhile, petitions are beginning to pour in from around the state, thanks to those who downloaded petitions at our website.
Of course the big question has been, "what will dispensaries think about our initiative?" During the Prop. 19 campaign, it seemed like a majority of dispensaries opposed that initiative. Fortunately, the response by dispensaries to the Regulate Marijuana Like Wine Act has been almost universally positive. People understand that RMLW is different, because it provides real legal protection for storefront dispensaries, while ensuring that local jurisdictions cannot ban, regulate or tax them. For the same fee that a wine merchant would pay, dispensaries can obtain state licensing from the Department of Alcohol Beverage Control. And if the state drags its feet on issuing you or your dispensary a license, the process becomes automatic.
It is important to understand that RMLW will create a huge new economy in hemp, fuel, fiber and medicine. However, let's just look at what the so-called recreational use of cannabis would provide in economic stimulus to the California economy, once it is regulated like wine:
CALIFORNIA WINE INDUSTRY BENEFITS
Annual Economic Impacts
- $61.5 billion in state economic impact
- $121.8 billion in national economic impact
- 330,000 jobs in California
- 820,000 jobs nationwide
- $12.3 billion in state wages
- $25.8 billion in U.S. wages
- $101.5 million given in annual charitable contributions from California wineries
- $14.7 billion paid in state and federal taxes
- 20.7 million tourists visit California wine regions
- $2.1 billion spent by tourists in state
Source: Wine Institute, Gomberg- Fredrikson Report, Stonebridge Research, California Dept. of Food & Agriculture, U.S. Tax & Trade Bureau, and U.S. Dept of Commerce.
http://www.wineinstitute.org/files/California_Wine_Statistical_Highlights_Nov_2011_0.pdf
As you can see the state economic impact of wine is $65.5 billion. The sales taxes on wine are $14 billion. Is there any reason to think it would be less for cannabis? Compare that $14 billion from wine sales with the $100 million currently being collected on medical marijuana and you'll see that we are talking about 140 times greater revenue than anyone realizes. These are serious numbers with serious implications for everyone, including people who might hate marijuana, but understand it can do wonders for California's economy, as well as own their bottom line.
We are busy arranging field offices around the state. If you know someone with an office, that is willing to hold petitions for people to pick them up please get their information to me. We have field office packs ready to ship and soon will have signs. Some examples of people you might ask are dispensaries, professional offices, hydroponics stores, or cafes, internet lounges and other social hospitality venues. We will send them petitions, badges, circulator declarations, and a sign for their window and we will post their location on our websites, driving people to them. Their duty would only to be sure that people picking up petitions also sign the declaration and to send the declarations back to us.
Thank you all for working hard to make 2012 the year we end marijuana prohibition in California.
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