We're talking about the people and groups that represent access to the big money needed to a) get on the ballot, and b) pay for advertising to actually win.
You need 500,000 signatures in California; that means you'll spend $1-2 million just making the ballot. Then, in a state with some of the country's biggest media markets, you probably need another $5-10 million to win.
This is being run by the ACLU of Northern California, and includes people from the Marijuana Policy Project, the Drug Policy Alliance, and the Washington state legalization effort. These are "pragmatic" reformers, who may be willing to sacrifice some things--home cultivation, per se drugged driving provisions--that more pot culture people may find objectionable.
They want to wait for 2016, their argument being that a presidential election year increases turnout, and increased turnout will bode well for a pot legalization initiative. They really, really don't want to see an initiative lose in 2014, so much so that I think they would rather none even make the ballot.
The pot culture people don't want to wait for 2016; that's why there are two 2014 initiatives in the works this year, a Hererite one in the signature-gathering phase, and an "open source" one awaiting title and ballot wording approval at the attorney general's office. There were also four or five in 2012. None of them actually made the ballot, and these two probably won't either because they don't have the big bucks behind them.
This panel has no formal or official power, but your point is well-taken. It's work will no doubt help shape and inform an eventual "establishment" 2016 legalization initiative; it needs to hear loud and clear from the marijuana community.
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what difference does it make?
