An Assembly public safety committee today passed a bill to legalize, regulate and tax marijuana for use by all California residents.
But then Assembly Bill 390 by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, passed away in a bureaucratic haze, the Sacramento Bee’s Peter Hecht reports here. Ammiano announced that a critical public health committee will not hear the bill this week — meaning that it won’t meet a legislative deadline for advancing to the Assembly floor.
However, despite a procession of law enforcement officers who testified against the bill, the public safety committee’s 4-3 vote passing the legislation maintained momentum for continued debate and a potential November ballot initiative.
“I think the conversation is definitely gaining traction,” Ammiano said after the bill passed the committee he chairs. “There was a time when the ‘M’ word was never mentioned in Sacramento.”
Spokesman Quintin Mecke said Ammiano probably will introduce new marijuana legislation if voters pass a pot legalization measure in November. Ammiano’s bill called for implementing pot’s legalization and distribution by establishing fees and guidelines for a state-licensed network of commercial cultivators.
At this posting, the L.A. Times had not updated its story from this morning.
The San Francisco Chronicle story is here.
The Contra Costa Times/Mercury News story ishere.
Updated Sacramento Bee story here.
Huffington Post story is here.
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