E.J. Montini
The Arizona Republic
If state legislators believe that Arizona citizens want to reconsider the medical marijuana law they should go out and collect signatures and put an initiative on the ballot, just like Arizona citizens have done three times, passing a medical marijuana law each time.
Instead, Rep. John Kavanagh and the Republicans who control the legislature want to put the issue on the ballot in 2014 without having collected a single signature.
It’s a little perk legislators have that the rest of us do not.
Not long ago, when I wrote a column about this, I asked Kavanagh if he thought he could get the question on the ballot if he weren’t a member of the legislature.
“No,” he said. “The opposition to the medical-marijuana initiative raised a grand total of about $10,000. While we call it the people’s initiative, unless you’ve got big bucks in today’s modern, high-population Arizona, you are not getting an initiative on the ballot. They just can’t raise the money.”
But is it the money or the desire?
