AB390

The Times-Standard

Donna Tam/The Times-Standard
Posted: 03/08/2009 01:31:43 AM PST

Supporters of a bill to regulate marijuana for recreational use are saying the bill would help close the gap on California's continual budget deficit.

The Marijuana Control, Regulation, and Education Act, introduced by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, last month, is meant to regulate marijuana like alcohol and tobacco by permitting taxed sales to those 21 and older.

According to the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, or NORML, the bill could generate more than $1 billion in tax revenues and reduced enforcement costs. The bill would create a structure where producers or distributors would have to pay a $50 per ounce excise tax, or about $1 per joint. Read more »

Los Angeles Daily News

Time has come to legalize pot
By Dale Gieringer
Updated: 03/07/2009 10:06:03 PM PST

With the state out of money and its the prisons overflowing, California's laws against marijuana make no economic sense.

Every year, the state shells out millions in taxpayers' dollars to arrest, prosecute and imprison marijuana offenders in a vain attempt to stamp out its use. Meanwhile, legal and more dangerous drugs such as tobacco and alcohol are generating billions in revenues for the state.

California taxpayers would benefit from a new bill by San Francisco Assemblyman Tom Ammiano that would legalize, tax and regulate marijuana for adult use. The bill would establish a state-licensing system for producers and distributors, who could sell to adults over 21. Read more »

Times-Standard

California can lead the Nation out of this Depression by legalizing Marijuana
By Dave Stancliff/For the Times-Standard
Posted: 03/08/2009 01:28:43 AM PST

A grainy black-and-white film fills the dark room. The audience shifts in their seats nervously as a young woman walks into her room and looks in the mirror and suddenly starts to scream! The words “Marijuana Madness” appear on the top of the screen.

The myths are starting to lift like fog dissipating in the light of day. The lies and racist reasons for making marijuana illegal are dropping out of the sky like a steady rain, forming puddles destined to dry up.

Californians, and the other states that allow medical marijuana, have received some good news. Assemblyman Tom Ammiano's landmark bill (AB 390) to tax and regulate marijuana just like alcohol and tobacco is being considered by state lawmakers. Read more »

Chicago Sun-Times

Legalizing marijuana makes sense, cents

March 3, 2009

BY STEVE HUNTLEY

Its budget meltdown has California taking a look at legalizing marijuana as a means to revive its depleted treasury. But common sense, not economic need, should persuade Americans it's past time for a sober look at our mad "reefer madness" laws.

The Golden State legislator pushing the idea, Tom Ammiano of -- plug in the appropriate joke -- San Francisco, says licensing and taxing legal marijuana production and sales would earn California $1.3 billion a year. His bill would legalize marijuana possession and use for adults 21 or older, license commercial farming of it and tax it at $50 an ounce. Read more »

Capitol Weekly: The Newspaper of California Government and Politics

Tapping into California’s forgotten cash crop makes sense
By F. Smith (published Thursday, March 05, 2009)

In the wake of a budget agreement that even those who supported it loathe for its tax increases and deep cuts to education and health care, Assemblyman Tom Ammiano (D-SanFrancisco) has offered a proposal that will bolster the state’s budget while protecting our environment and helping keep drugs away from kids. Read more »