A landmark bill to tax and regulate marijuana, authored by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco), was reintroduced in the California legislature today. The proposal would make personal possession and cultivation of marijuana legal for adults over 21 and would institute a regulatory system for marijuana sales modeled after the one that already exists for alcoholic beverages.

Asm. Ammiano’s 2009 marijuana reform bill, A.B. 390, was approved in the Assembly Public Safety Committee last month but did not advance further due to legislative calendar constraints. This year’s bill, A.B. 2254, is expected to receive hearings in the next couple of months.

Stay tuned as this bill progresses. We’ll definitely have our plates full out here in California, as we work on this legislation and build public support for reform in a year when the state’s electorate will be voting on the Tax Cannabis 2010 initiative.

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Today, the California Board of Equalization (BOE) released its analysis of state Assembly Bill 390 – legislation that would tax and regulate marijuana.

According to the report, the BOE would collect $1.38 billion annually in new revenue from the sales of legal marijuana, if the legislation is approved. The analysis is based on research that indicates that Californians annually consume about 1 million pounds of marijuana.

$990 million would be generated from a $50/ounce excise tax and would be earmarked for state drug education and treatment programs. An additional $392 million collected in sales tax would go into the state general fund. This report does not address the potential hundreds of millions in criminal justice savings that would be realized if California stopped arresting nonviolent adults for marijuana.

These figures should be raising some eyebrows under California’s capitol dome today as the governor and state legislators are attempting to hammer out  a solution to the state’s record $26 billion budget deficit.

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