BILL WOULD REGULATE POT LIKE WINE

I had two invitations for Thursday.

At South Coast Plaza, Sandy Segerstrom Daniels was hosting the
opening-night party for her 10th annual Festival of Children, a
monthlong endeavor to promote the general betterment of the lives of
children. In years past, her gala has been themed like an
old-fashioned ice-cream social, with the happy sounds of a carousel
and children laughing. Always an event as lovely and wholesome as the
Lennon sisters. ADVERTISEMENT

A few miles away on Thursday, her dear cousin, Richard Moriarty, was
hosting a fundraiser to legalize pot.

My schedule was such that I could only attend one.

As I pulled up to Moriarty's estate, I could hear a throaty
Lamborghini engine roaring to life from the vicinity of his garage,
so I wandered up that way. While the sound of a Lamborghini is not
unusual in Newport, this is: the body of Moriarty's black Lambo is
literally mounted on the wall of his living room like a Mondrian,
while its engine has been turned into a coffee table in his
downstairs man cave. He likes to fire it up to amuse visitors, and
sure enough, I found cousin Richard with a gaggle of first-timers,
among them retired Judge Jim Gray and Congressman Dana Rohrabacher.

Gray is the chief signatory and proponent of the Regulate Marijuana
Like Wine Act of 2012. Lest you think I indiscriminately bailed on
the Festival of Children for the Festival of Pot, there was actual
news value in my choice. (Plus, as you'll see tomorrow, I more than
made it up to the Festival of Children the next night.) The pot
initiative was submitted to the attorney general on Friday, which
sets in motion the process to put it on the state ballot.

The initiative is very similar to the failed Proposition 19 of 2010,
but with one major difference: It would allow employers to fire
workers who test positive for marijuana. Prop. 19 lost one major
natural constituency libertarian-leaning business owners who feared
their hands would be tied and lost 53.5 percent to 46.5 percent. If
the new, more business-friendly initiative can pick up that crowd, it
might win.

Moriarty's estate includes an actual winery, which is why an Orange
County pot-brownie baker who goes by the name Pati Cakes asked him to
host the event. The initiative would tax and regulate marijuana like
wine and, as with wine, anyone 21 or older could possess or use it.
In fact, it generally would be illegal to impose on commercial
marijuana activity any regulations greater than those imposed on
winemaking and sales. See regulatemarijuanalikewine.com for details.

Of course, the initiative must make the ballot first, which is going
to take about $1million to get three-quarters of a million valid
signatures. That was the purpose of the event Thursday, which raised
about $10,000. I saw about 50 people there, among them Anaheim high
school board trustee Katherine Smith, former county treasurer
candidate Keith Rodenhuis and Fullerton City Councilman Bruce
Whitaker, who was representing his boss, Assemblyman Chris Norby.

Rohrabacher, who admitted years ago he smoked pot as a young man,
spoke briefly, repeating for everyone's amusement his oft-quoted
response to the question about whether he inhaled: "I did everything
but drink the bong water."

If Pati Cakes represented the medical-marijuana crowd and Rohrabacher
the don't-tread-on-me crowd, speaker Steve Downing, along with Gray,
represented the drug-war-didn't-work crowd. (I could not find an
overt member of the
let's-just-get-stoned-and-watch-the-dog-for-three-hours crowd.)

Downing, a former Los Angeles Police Department deputy chief, said,
"I was one of the original drug warriors," and all it did was lead to
the rise of the Bloods and Crips. (His group's site, leap.cc,
outlines why some cops support legalizing pot.) "I've never smoked a
joint in my life," Downing said, "and if this passes, I'm not going to start."

Downing and Gray and their ilk, therefore, would contend there's
nothing inconsistent with the goals of the Festival of Children and
the Regulate Marijuana Like Wine initiative. In fact, the pro-pot
crowd would argue the two are complementary. So, here's hoping that
next year, the cousins can get on the same page and host a, um, joint
event in early September.