from www.sfgate.com – The California Secretary of State is expected today to certify a measure that would ask voters this November whether marijuana should be legalized and regulated for adult recreational use.

The ballot measure would mark the second time in nearly 40 years that people in the Golden State would decide the issue of legalization, though the legal framework and cultural attitudes surrounding marijuana have changed significantly the past four decades.

If Californians were to pass the measure, it would be the first in the nation to do so as similar efforts in other states all have failed. California would also have the most comprehensive laws on legal marijuana in the entire world, marijuana reform advocates say. Opponents are confident they will easily defeat the measure.

Backers needed to collect at least 433,971 valid signatures of registered voters. They submitted nearly 700,000 signatures.

The initiative calls for allowing Californians 21 and older to grow and possess up to an ounce of marijuana under state law. Local jurisdictions could tax and regulate it, or decide not to participate. Marijuana would continue to be banned outright by federal law.

“There is no state that currently allows adults to grow marijuana for personal (recreational) use, but what is totally different and will be a game-changer internationally is this would allow authorized sales to adults as determined by a local authority,” said Stephen Gutwillig, California State Director of the Drug Policy Alliance Network, an organization advocating for changes in drug laws.

The major backers of the initiative – the founder of an Oakland-based marijuana trade school, a retired Orange County judge and various drug law reform organizations – are planning to oversee a $10 million campaign to push the measure.

Allen St. Pierre, the executive director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, said the organization plans to focus its efforts to pass the proposition and said the California effort is notable because it likely will be funded by the marijuana industry.

“This is being launched at a time not only of mass nationwide zeitgeist around marijuana, but acutely in California,” he said. “Almost all other (marijuana) initiatives were poorly funded and what funding there has been … was purely philanthropic.”

But opponents, which likely will include a large coalition of public safety associations, said that once voters understand the implications of the measure it will be handily defeated.

“The overarching issue is given all the social problems caused by alcohol abuse, all the social and public safety problems caused by pharmaceutical abuse and the fact that tobacco kills – given all those realities, what on Earth is the social good that’s going to be served by adding another mind-altering substance to the array,” said John Lovell, a lobbyist for a number of statewide police and public safety associations.

Additionally, he said, employers and other entities that receive federal money may not be able to meet federal standards for drug-free workplaces if the measure passes, putting billions of federal dollars in jeopardy.

“It’s terrible drafting … that will cause the state of California significant fiscal problems,” he said, adding that when these issues are presented to voters the measure will “sink like a rock in the North Atlantic.”

Attitudes of voters in California have increasingly moved in favor of full legalization of marijuana. Californians passed Prop. 215 in 1996 to legalize marijuana for medical use. A bill in the Legislature would also legalize adult recreational use and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has said it is an idea that should be debated, though he personally opposes it.

A Field Poll taken last April found 56 percent of voters backed the idea of legalization and taxation of marijuana. The measure will add to an already crowded November ballot, with an expensive gubernatorial race looming along with other statewide offices.

Prominent candidates running for higher office, including Democratic Attorney General Jerry Brown who is seeking the governorship and San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris, a Democrat who is running for attorney general, have said they oppose the initiative. Don Perata, former Senate President Pro Tem and candidate for Oakland mayor, supports the initiative.

The major Republican candidates oppose the measure.

Richard Lee, the founder of Oaksterdam University, has spearheaded the effort and said he is not concerned about prominent political opposition to the plan, noting the similar lack of support for Prop. 215.

“I think the voters lead the politicians on this issue and they realize that,” Lee said.