The effort to legalize marijuana in the state of California is now underway.

On September 8th, 2009, a network of true believers across the state kicked off the petition campaign for the California Cannabis Initiative, and the effort has been gaining substantial momentum ever since.

Their goal is to gather enough signatures to get the CCI on the state ballot for the November 2010 election. It won’t be easy, but the initiative’s broad reforms have won it a devoted following of volunteers who are ready to give this endeavor their all.

In basic terms, the CCI alters marijuana laws to mimic those for alcohol, legalizes hemp, sets up a taxation structure of per ounce for retail marijuana sales, calls for the licensing of those in the commercial marijuana industry, releases adults imprisoned for state-level marijuana offenses and expunges previous convictions for such offenses.

The California Attorney General predicted that the state would save several millions of dollars per year by following this “no jail for pot” principle. What’s less clear is how much revenue would be generated by the per ounce tax. While it sounds hefty indeed, it would only apply to marijuana for commercial purposes and not to cultivation for personal use. Still, the CCI’s authors estimate that revenue generated through the tax could give the state .4 billion each year. That money would be designated for public education, healthcare, environmental programs, public works and state parks.

In this way, the CCI is an ambitious attempt to make something out of nothing. The campaign to get the initiative onto the ballot is entirely unfunded at this point, and it draws heavily on its single resource: dedicated volunteers.

Outside grocery stores and inside festivals, these staunch supporters have been setting up impromptu petition tables with their ironing boards and trying to collect as many signatures as possible. Their official goal is to gather 650,000 by the beginning of February, which would be an astounding success for an all-volunteer effort.

The members of the CCI’s ironing board brigade not only work for free, but they also pay out of pocket for each signature they collect. It’s the opposite of the traditional model for a successful initiative campaign, which includes a budget to pay for the bulk pre-printing of the petitions and to pay petitioners on a per-signature basis. Instead, the CCI’s petitions are printed on-demand as needed by county coordinators, costing them 18 cents per copy.

Such an organizational model is certainly atypical, and it’s bound to strike experienced petitioners as being doomed to failure. But there’s more at work in this equation than just a group of devoted volunteers and true believers. The force pushing the CCI’s effort forward is the public’s growing desire to tax and regulate marijuana. At some point, this momentum will be massive enough to end the wasteful and destructive policy of marijuana prohibition. Let us hope that time is now.