SACRAMENTO – On Wednesday California Secretary of State Debra Bowen certified an initiative that would legalize, regulate and tax marijuana, which is scheduled to appear on the Nov. 2 General Election ballot.

It's the second ballot measure for November that Bowen has certified, the first being related to the state water supply.

The last day to qualify any measure for the November General Election ballot is June 24.

In order to qualify for the ballot, the marijuana initiative needed 433,971 valid petition signatures, which is equal to 5 percent of the total votes cast for governor in the November 2006 General Election.

The initiative proponents submitted 694,248 signatures in an attempt to qualify the measure, and it qualified through the random sample signature check.

County elections officials have 30 working days to verify the validity of the signatures filed with

their offices using a random sampling method. The state Elections Code requires county elections officials to verify 500 signatures, or 3 percent of the number of signatures filed in their county, whichever is greater.

Counties receiving fewer than 500 petition signatures are required to verify all the signatures filed in their elections offices.

An initiative can qualify via random sampling, without further verification, if the sampling projects a number of valid signatures greater than 110 percent of the required number. This initiative needed at least 477,369 projected valid signatures to qualify by random sampling, and it exceeded that threshold today.

The Attorney General’s official title and summary of the initiative is as follows:

CHANGES CALIFORNIA LAW TO LEGALIZE MARIJUANA AND ALLOW IT TO BE REGULATED AND TAXED. INITIATIVE STATUTE.

Allows people 21 years old or older to possess, cultivate, or transport marijuana for personal use. Permits local governments to regulate and tax commercial production and sale of marijuana to people 21 years old or older. Prohibits people from possessing marijuana on school grounds, using it in public, smoking it while minors are present, or providing it to anyone under 21 years old. Maintains current prohibitions against driving while impaired. Summary of estimate by governments: Savings of up to several tens of millions of dollars annually to state and local governments on the costs of incarcerating and supervising certain marijuana offenders. Unknown but potentially major tax, fee, and benefit

assessment revenues to state and local government related to the production and sale of marijuana products. (09-0024.)

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