Created: 7/8/2009 9:43:38 AM 
SACRAMENTO, CA --Marijuana advocacy groups are using California's budget crisis as a springboard for a new campaign to legalize pot.
At midnight on July 8, the Marijuana Policy Project began running television ads across the state, pushing for the legalization and taxation of marijuana.
"Instead of being treated like criminals for using a substance safer than alcohol, we want to pay our fair share," says Nadene Herndon, who is featured in the commercial.
Herndon, 58, is from Fair Oaks. For three years the former state worker has used medical marijuana to alleviate pain, insomia and muscle spasms associated with several strokes.
"The Vicodin and the Flexeril and those type of medications made me tired. I was groggy. I was tired. I didn't want to go anywhere or do anything. A friend recommended medical marijuana and I tried it and it actually did help," said Herndon.
The Marijuana Policy Project estimated the state could shave over $1 billion from its deficit if pot were made legal and taxed.
Advocates also say the legalization would reduce crime by helping fund law enforcment and by taking pot revenue out of the hands of criminal gangs. They propose the state start treating pot like like beer and wine.
Alcohol provokes violence, marijuana doesn't. Alcohol destroys your liver and your brain, marijauna doesn't," said Bruce Mirken, Director of Communications with the Marijuana Policy Project, "It's time that people had the choice, as long as they behave responsibly."
It was just two months ago that Gov. Schwarzenegger said he was open to debate on the issue of legalizing marijuana in California.
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.
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