California Panel Approves Legalization Bill

The California Assembly’s Public Safety Committee has voted 4-3 in favor of a bill that would legalize, tax and regulate marijuana sales in the state, the Los Angeles Times reported Jan. 12.

The committee was chaired by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, the bill sponsor, who said that slapping a $50-per-ounce tax on the drug and allowing it to be sold openly and legally would be preferable to prohibition. “Drug dealers do not ask for ID,” he said. “We need to regulate something that has gone chaotic, has resulted in carnage.”

Law-enforcement groups testified against the bill, AB 390, during Tuesday’s hearing. “The mere consideration of an attempt to trade human misery for tax dollars smacks of the cynical throwing away of countless human beings,” said Bob Cooke, former president of the California Narcotics Officers Association.

The measure now goes to the Assembly’s health committee for consideration. The vote was hailed by supporters as the first formal consideration of marijuana legalization in the U.S. “Making marijuana legal has now entered the public dialogue in a credible way,” said Stephen Gutwillig, California director of the Drug Policy Alliance. “Decades of wasteful, punitive, racist marijuana policy have taken quite a toll in this country. The Public Safety Committee has demonstrated that serious people take ending marijuana prohibition seriously.”