Marijuana Policy Project

SACRAMENTO, CA — It was just two months ago that Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said he was open to debate on the issue of legalizing marijuana in California.

Now the Marijuana Policy Project, a nationwide group pushing for the legalization of pot, is set to run ads on local television stations beginning Wednesday, urging that marijuana be made legal in California.

The ads feature a Fair Oaks woman who uses medical marijuana and says she and others would be happy to pay taxes on the drug if it were legal.

The group estimates the state could raise over $1 billion if pot were made legal and taxed.

Word of the ads came as good news to medical marijuana user Casey Welch in Sacramento. "We know as well as anybody else, there's billions of dollars worth of money for them to draw to taxes," he said.

Welch has his own business and says medical pot helped him stop using harder drugs. "Vicodin, or any of that. I have all that prescribed for broken bones and I don't do any of that, alcohol — all that's out the picture."

But medical marijuana user Terrylee Allen believes marijuana should not be used unless you are under a doctor's care, and he worries about its use as a recreational drug. "It will take over, where alot of these other drugs have been controlled and I feel it will devastate, very negatively, our society."

Medical marijuana advocate Lanette Davies, with Americans for Safe Access, says a small minority of users may experience harmful effects, either mental or physical, from marijuana. "This is a medicine. This is not something that you should probably use as a recreational (drug), without having any more research done," she said.

A bill to legalize marijuana has already been introduced in the state legislature, but it may face an uphill battle. Republican Senate Minority Leader Dennis Hollingsworth called legalizing marijuana a 'silly idea.' "The reality is that the social programs that would be needed to take care of the addiction that would occur if you were to legalize marijuana would probably far outweight any increase in taxes," he said.

Some Los Angeles and Bay Area television stations have refused to run the ad, according to spokesman Bruce Mirkin with the Marijuana Policy Project. He says they might promote illegal activity.

To medical pot user Casey Welch, the idea of legalizing the popular drug he and so many others already use, seems like a sensible way to help balance the state's out-of-control budget. "You're not doing any illegal activity, the state knows about it, and they can tax it," he said.