District Attorney Steve Cooley announced today that he opposes the marijuana legalization initiative and outlined a myriad of legal problems that will be created by its passage in a letter to California Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr.

“The marijuana initiative is terribly misleading, poorly drafted and not in the best interests of California residents,” Cooley said in a written statement. “It will not regulate, not control nor effectively tax marijuana in California.”

The District Attorney said that legalizing marijuana under “The Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010” will not generate substantial revenue for local governments or the state, as initiative sponsors claim. Instead, passage would result in California losing federal funds because the initiative violates the Drug-Free Workplace Act of 1988.

Cooley said that unlike state regulation of alcohol, the initiative sets up no framework for the state to control marijuana sales and purchases. Local governments will have to come up with their own local ordinances, resulting in “a completely unworkable patchwork of different laws throughout the state’s 483 cities and 58 counties,” he explained.

In addition, the initiative gives the state no control over marijuana-related activities. It also restricts the rights of property owners, as well as potentially causing the loss of businesses and jobs throughout California.

“This is a bad initiative that will create tremendous harm and no good at all,” Cooley said. “I have asked that the Attorney General not approve the proposed Title and Summary, unless it truly reflects the initiative’s seriously negative consequences.”