[1]OAKLAND, Calif. (BP) — A major supporter of legalizing marijuana in California says a pro-pot ballot initiative likely won’t make it on the ballot in 2012 because there is not enough money behind it.
“It’s pretty much dead,” Richard Lee, who spent $1.5 million in an unsuccessful push to legalize marijuana in 2010, told the San Francisco Weekly. “The funders didn’t come through.”
Lee’s 2010 proposal, known as Proposition 19, would have made California the first state to legalize the growth, sale and use of recreational marijuana. But it lost, 54-46 percent.
Also hurting the pro-marijuana movement is a split about strategy, the Weekly reported. There are two competing initiatives for 2012.
Philanthropists “have not committed to shelling out the necessary cash this time around,” the Weekly said.
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Compiled by Michael Foust, associate editor of Baptist Press.
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