California’s support for legalized weed apparently goes all the way to the top.Here in Washington, the would-be ballot initiative to legalize pot has expansive goals: remove all state penalties for adults who possess, grow and distribute, no matter how much they’re carrying. In California, the current thoroughbred amongst a crop of wannabes is much narrower in scope: “only” making it legal to possess an ounce and grow plants in an area no larger than 25 square feet.OK. So ours has more reach than theirs. But want to know what California has that we don’t? According to The Los Angeles Times, one million dollars and 700,000 signatures.Sensible Washington, the five-person group steering the initiative here, has its fair share of local heavyweights, including medical marijuana lawyer Doug Hiatt. But Hiatt can’t match the resources of Richard Lee, the money behind Cali’s initiative and the founder of weed’s Harvard, the cleverly titled Oaksterdam that was front and center in an SW cover story last month (“Weed Takes Root”). And he and Sensible Washington definitely don’t have enough signatures to get on the ballot today, nine months before the election.
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