(California) Assembly committee OKs recreational marijuana

[Newsjock]

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

A bill to legalize adult recreational use of marijuana - and allow the drug to be sold and taxed in California - cleared a key hurdle this morning, as the Assembly Public Safety Committee voted 4-3 to move it to the next step in the debate. But a Friday legislative deadline could mean the legislation will die before making it to the Assembly floor.

Members of the committee who approved the bill are all from the Bay Area and said they did not necessarily support the plan but wanted debate on the state's marijuana policy to continue.

After the vote, Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, who sponsored the bill and chairs the committee, said "the conversation is definitely gaining traction in Sacramento."

... The bill, AB390, would allow possession, sale and cultivation of marijuana for people over 21, and impose a $50-an-ounce sales tax on marijuana, much like taxes on tobacco and alcohol. The California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control would be tasked with regulation.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/01/12/BA191BH4AR.DTL&tsp=1

[EFerrari]

1. Go, Tom!

[larryageda215]

6. This is what happens in Orange County when you go to buy your weed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-VFEtteDt0

legalize it

[krabigirl]

10. ugh, what a waste of money. Thug cops...can't stand them.

and they re-opened the next day!

[KansDem]

20. Man! I wish law enforcement was that quick and tough with the banksters and Con Street!

Or with the lying Bush/Cheney and their bogus war!

Nice how they distorted the officers' faces so they couldn't be recognized, but left the innocent citizens' faces exposed.

Oh, and taping over the camera lenses? Nice touch!...

[SammyWinstonJack]

29. +1

:thumbsup:

[bertman]

47. That raid video is just sickening. Nazi thugs with badges. And taping over the lenses

of the cameras "because there were plain-clothes officers there". Now that's a crock of shit.

That is a fascist police state at work, ladies and gentlemen. You have just observed the Corporate mafia in action through its wholly-owned subsidiary--your local police.

[Spike89]

2. Great, but getting the taxes isn't realistic

In theory, pot smokers should be happy to pay $50/ounce in exchange for legal, no-hassle weed. In reality, $50 is a lot of money when it can easily be kept in your own pocket.

[Poll_Blind]

3. I see your point but I think the presumption is that larger, organized grow-ops which yeild very...

...high-quality bud are probably going to dominate the marketplace after a while. While technically anyone can grow marijuana, privately, to avoid the tax, it is more likely that agricultural R&D is going to make the sweetest herb come from easy-to-find-and-tax businesses.

Just a thought. I imagine it'll probably wind up like it is with microbrews in the Northwest: Everyone enjoys them (from larger manufacturers, at least "larger" in comparison to something done out of the home) while there is a minority who like "brewing" (or in this case, growing) their own.

Just my thought on your thought.

PB

[Spike89]

11. Maybe, but I don't think so

It is very hard to quantify what people might pay. The beer comparison is valid in a couple ways, but home brewing is pretty time and space consuming, NOT cheaper that even decewnt commercial microbrew, and as someone who's sampled more than a few homebrews...drinkable beer isn't a quaranteed result.

There will be more than a few people that don't want to grow the stuff themselves, but then there are also more than a few people with the tools, knowledge, and ability to grow some awesome weed (they also have experience dodging the law/revenue agents).

[dotymed]

58. Decades ago

we grew some of the sweetest "skunkweed" in Ky. If it ever gets legalized, IMO, people would be silly to pay $50 an ounce in taxes for it. I quit because I had to stay employed. Isn't it amazing how people who earn "big bucks" are not subject to "random testing?" Believe me, they are some of the biggest consumers. What do you think would happen if we required politicians and lawyers...etc... to be randomly tested? The testing would be ruled illegal (it is) in no time. It must make these steroid popping "law enforcement" officers (lol, not even close), feel like real men to handcuff people and lord over them. IMO, these "officers" are worse than most of the people they arrest. They are above the law, just like the gestapo.

[Romulox]

8. The state will always find it hard to collect a tax where it provides no service...

:shrug:

[abqmufc]

14. $50 oz better than $50 an 1/8th

Simple math based on the current market and medical prices I've seen. I'll take $50 an ounce for what now costs $400 to $800 on the market.

For me the key is the 'right to cultivate.' If one can grow indoors or in one's back yard what taxation can they charge? It really just allows one the piece of mind they will no longer be facing a possibility of life in prison based upon a mandatory/minimum drug sentencing for a bust of growing plants(that ends up as 3 felonies - possession, possession with intent to sell, cultivation).

I also think Washington's decriminalization has more likely to pass through a State legislature.

[KansDem]

21. Do you still measure pot in "lids?"

When I was in college during the early to mid-1970s, pot was bought in "lids" for $10 each (so my friends told me...:blush:)

I'm not sure how much a "lid" held, but it was roughly a "Baggie"


So how are cannabis transactions conducted these days? :blush:

[Betsy Ross]

24. We bought "lids" in Prince Albert tobacco cans.

Hence lids? A lid was about an ounce. Yeah, Dime lids in the 60's. At several hundred an ounce, forced to buy in quarters or eighths.

[guruoo]

73. I recall homegrown going for $25/lb at the Bull Island rock festival in 1972

Six of us freeks wedged ourselves into in a Ford Maverick for the 500mile trip there
and back.

edit: Googled this: http://bullisland.blogspot.com/

[Webster Green]

53. In the mid sixties, a lid was three fingers deep in a baggie.

Somewhere around an ounce, depending on how many seeds were in it. :hippie:

[ebayfool]

75. lol - you're showing our age! n/t

[Matariki]

49. That's $50 TAX on an ounce - not the cost of an ounce

Still, if it's legal it will no doubt be less expensive.

[daninthemoon]

30. Look at the taxes people pay on cigarettes. Not a problem

[Xithras]

32. I still support the idea of licensing noncommercial growers.

With a medical exemption, of course. If you want to grow for home use, you pay $X per year for the license (maybe $50-100) and take a simple test covering the laws (like, "Do you understand that we're going to throw you in prison if you provide this to people under 21 years of age?" or "Do you understand that driving under the infludence of marijuana will net you the same prison sentences as driving under the influence of alcohol?"). Like a drivers license, anyone with a plant would be required to show the license when asked by law enforcement.

$100 a year is dirt cheap when compared to what most pot smokers spend today.

The idea was being discussed when this first came up. I wonder why it was dropped.

[Soylent Brice]

4. *fingers crossed*

[Betsy Ross]

5. Having recently lost the only MM dispensary in town

one must now go into Oakland, CA from Alameda. Oakland taxes dispensary sales. I do not know how the actual price will vary between cities.

[abqmufc]

16. Seems local papers advertise prices

having recently seen a O.C. local indie paper I was shocked to see the "green directory". It's marketed like a section for strip clubs and personals.

All places listed had hours and prices. Seemed all assured $50 to $60 an 1/8 oz. I loved the hours...how medical or pharamcutical is it when they are opened from 8PM till 6 PM the next day? Opened 22 hours, now find me a pharamcy that is opened that long.

[slampoet]

28. All the Brooks Drug store chain and 60% of the CVS chain in Rhode Island are open 24-7.

My girlfriend would be dead if they weren't.

[marginlized]

7. I will HAPPILY pay that tax

to help the great state of California out of its mess.

[krabigirl]

9. same here!

[Freddie Stubbs]

12. Since Schwarzenegger will likely veto this, we should probably ask the leading candidates for

governor how they stand on this issue.

[Bluenorthwest]

19. He's on his way out of office and fact o' the matter is

he is rather fond of the weed of which we speak. Zero carbs.

[robertpaulsen]

26. Arnold smoked and inhaled.

Pumping Iron days.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqep14L2f7k

[lurky]

67. Hypocrisy doesn't seem to bother Arnold.

Look at his stance on Steroids, for instance.

For some reason, I'm still amazed at the attitude among the powerful that "It's OK for me to do it, but the peasants should be punished for it." See GWB, Rush Limbaugh, Larry Craig, etc. etc.

[daninthemoon]

33. Why would he veto? Could become his legacy. How he saved California

and freed a very large group of smokers and their families from the hell of our current penal system.

[alp227]

13. YES! A step forward in rising up the sea of blood

For years the state has wasted way too much money arresting, prosecuting, and incarcerating adults who just wanna have a little fun with some ganja. Now with the tax, the state can make a little money.

[Iggo]

15. heheheh...hehehehe....hehe

[thereismore]

17. Money talks. CA is bankrupt. Pot will be legal and taxed sooner than later. nt

[naaman fletcher]

18. $50/ oz? Wtf? That keeps the cartels in business.

It needs to be cheap to help put the cartels out of business and save mexico.

[Iggo]

22. Dude. This ain't 1970.

50 bucks an ozer is waaaaaaaay cheap.

[totodeinhere]

35. That's just the tax. The article doesn't say how much the pot itself would cost. n/t

[Mopar151]

44. It is easier to grow and process than tobacco

I'd guess that quality equivalent to currrent "commercial/schwag" would cost $20/oz to get to the retailer, hand raised & trimmed "kind bud/chronic" might get to $50/75. And that would last anyone but Snoop Dawg a month or so.

[debbierlus]

45. Super cheap.

[BreweryYardRat]

76. That IS cheap. Someone quoted current prices upthread.

$300 to $400/oz.

Even assuming some extra cost over and above the tax -- shouldn't be too much, it's an easy-to-grow plant -- that's still cheap enough to put cartels out of business.

[Geek_Girl]

23. I guess that's one way of getting CA out of the whole it's in

Maybe the rest of the US will follow.

[daninthemoon]

31. Here's hoping.

:toast: :hippie: :smoke:

[Uncle Joe]

25. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, Newsjock.:thumbsup:

[NICO9000]

27. That was painful to watch

These fascists just love to keep on fucking with peaceful potheads. This is like shooting fish in a barrel for them. Love how they go in there with full riot gear (like they're really scared of the stoners), but never seem to bust the violent gangs in L.A./OC with the same gusto. The whole country should be shown this video just so they can see how their tax dollars for the "war on people" (not drugs) are being spent. I just wish there was sound on the vid - I guarantee you they would be screaming all kinds of obscenities at the "perps."

[pleah]

34. K&R

[defendandprotect]

36. Wow -- a step in the right direction . . . away from the phony Drug War . . .

[RainDog]

37. California is in a position to take the lead to turn this nation around

Because things are so bad for so many, economically, it is possible for people to consider other options...to look at the evidence from peer-reviewed studies, from the years of CA/Amsterdam hybridization that was the result of the drug war.

Pot should be treated in more than one way.

Medicinal marijuana care needs to be able to immediately do controlled studies on various claims. This will open a research and development industry into marijuana as medicine and enable care providers to help titrate and breed for particular illnesses. Private enterprising farmers can bid for the jobs.

A hemp industry can be a part of this revival, with all the ways hemp can replace petroleum products. Hemp for Victory over terrorism!

Someone should plant hemp around Hearst's castle and use that hemp to make paper - and california could be the epicenter for industrial uses of hemp for maritime, for paper... That would be a wonderfully complete moment and good for the whole earth.

The recreational/religious pot is already like a winery, with various vintages available, various heads. Laws need to be clear about operating machinery, etc. Better tests that register actual intoxication can help to guard people's rights to sip cannabis tea on their private time.

people who want to grow the plant themselves as gardeners should just be left the f. alone unless they want to become a commercial-scale farmer.

..of course, this assumes that prohibitionist fears won't yet again kill innovation and individual freedom. I'm not holding my breath.

[SemperEadem]

38. 'bout time

just tax it just like alcohol is taxed.

[proud patriot]

39. Yes We Canibis !

:bounce:

[OnionPatch]

40. $50 tax on an ounce? That's too much.

Couldn't they tax at a similar percentage as alcohol or cigarettes? This much tax on one ounce is too much. $50 tax for a pound sounds more reasonable to me. Add fifty bucks to the price of an ounce and the price will be too high for lots of people. They'll continue to buy from the black market instead. Myself, I just want to grow my own in my own backyard, but I guess that's asking too much.

[AverageJoe5]

41. "Recreational marijuana" (in the headline) is a meaningless phrase

To "recreate" is to refresh yourself by means of relaxation to restore yourself physically and mentally. Smoking marijuana has a narcotic/hallucinogenic effect which is incompatible with restoring yourself physically or mentally. You can't recreate when you smoke marijuana. So "recreational marijuana" is meaningless.

[Name removed]

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[Name removed]

48. Deleted message

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[Webster Green]

54. Very odd post.

Obviously, you have no idea what pot is all about.

Fail! :rofl:

[roody]

63. I have smoked pot for over 30 years, and I have

never hallucinated! I smoke good pot too.

[Zhade]

68. Wrong. It's a medically-proven beneficial herb.

According to my doctors, it saved my eyesight.

Take your ignorant propaganda elsewhere. People here are smart enough to see through your bullshit.

[RedCappedBandit]

72. what is this i don't even

[David Zephyr]

43. Good for Tom Ammiano! I love my California.

Good news all around.

[justabob]

46. glad to hear it

The savings in the prison system/police alone will be significant.... Taxes on top of that is gravy. I hope they can get it done. We have wasted so much time and money on this, it is ridiculous.

What happens to all the people already in jail for possession, sale and cultivation?

[AlphaCentauri]

50. Lets welcome the next generation of zombies

another generation that won't be able to pass universal health care or election finance reform.

Bread and Circus.

[Flaneur]

52. That's just pathetic.

If only the hippies hadn't smoked pot, we'd be in Democratic utopia. Yeah, right.

[AlphaCentauri]

55. and we know hippies were the smarter people on earth

:hippie:

[Flaneur]

56. Your ax-grinding notwithstanding, that's neither here nor there.

Do you think the committee did the right thing by voting to legalize marijuana?

[AlphaCentauri]

57. Not sure

I don't know the details, I have too many questions. For example what about adults providing pot to minors, pot smokers around children, and preventing and combating addictions?

[Zhade]

70. Marijuana is not addictive. That's a scientific fact.

Habituation is not addiction.

[Zhade]

69. Fucking ridiculous. Google "sativa" and educate yourself.

You're only embarassing yourself with your ignorance.

[Hekate]

51. Is that the refreshing sound of common sense I hear? Treat it like alcohol for taxation purposes

An individual still has the legal right to make their own wine and brew their own beer at home -- so many gallons per year, as long as you're not selling it or transporting it very far.

This has always seemed to me like a good model for legal marijuana. If you grow it for home use -- no problem, just don't be selling it. If you want the convenience of buying a "brand" in a store, then it's taxed and otherwise regulated. Those little stickers on the tops of cigarette packs and bottles of alcohol are Tax Stamps, and you can't sell the product without them.

A tax of $50/ounce seems rather silly, though. Somehow I don't think that's going to fly.

I applaud Assemblyman Tom Ammiano's efforts to keep the conversation going; it's just that with term limits the turnover in elected officials is too fast for this to be a years-long "conversation," so I hope it's really gaining traction fast.

Hekate

[EvilMonk]

59. If you think...

...for one moment that they would allow you to grow your own, you have serious issues with reality.

One question:

Other than the one or two farmers (maybe?) out there, who here has ever seen a Tobacco Seed?

That's because the industry is so heavily regulated, that it is taxed (tax stamps for cultivation) from stem to stern. No way in infernal existence will CA legislation ever let anyone grow their own. They will tax the crap out of the entire process from growth to POS (Point Of Sale).

You might see a slight to significant drop in price when legalized, and you may very well see differing qualities (think: Glenlivet XXV Vs. Dewar's), but the initial market release will see high prices due to start-up costs from farmers to distribution.

Eventually, prices will level out as we've seen with the Organic Market.

[fascisthunter]

79. in some places, people are allowed to grow pot

The only catch is, there is a limit to the amount you can grow. But I do understand your point. I'm sure the lobbyists for big growers will demand that growing it should only be permitted to those in the business, and not consumers.

[Autonomy]

60. This could pull CA out of the red if it passes

and every other state, except for the ultra-fundie states, would follow suit.

[winyanstaz]

61. Well now..there will be jobs in California anyways :)

[roody]

62. The California Alcoholic Bev Control never saw a sales permit

that it did not like, so that will be good for those who want marijuana!! The ABC is a joke!! They are fully funded through alcohol sales, so the more the better! I'll keep growing my own and keep my $50.

[Fly by night]

64. We are pursuing a proposal in Tennessee for medical marijuana to be priced at $60/ounce

See this old DU thread ("The $60 (medical cannabis) ounce: a not-so-modest proposal")

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x6889020

In our proposal, medical cannabis would be available through pharmacies. Of the $60, $30 would go to the farmer, $20 would go to the state (to fund the mmj program with all excess going to fund indigent health care and substance abuse treatment) and $10 to the pharmacist. The medical cannabis would be provided as dried (and unprocessed) buds. (Pre-rolling joints just crushes the trichomes prematurely, making the cannabis less efficacious.)

I am meeting today with the lobbyists for pharmacists, chiefs of police, the TN Medical Association and the University of Tennessee School of Agriculture. If we don't do this in Tennessee (and our Rethugligan legislature makes it unlikely), I am willing to relocate to get 'er done in some other state.

My first choice is New Mexico, where the best medical cannabis can be grown in this country, based on favorable environmental and cultural conditions. Their state law would also allow this to occur. Their current problem is how their program is being administered (poorly).

On edit: It would be fine with me if medical cannabis could be prescribed to treat "cannabis dependence". That would essentially legalize access to cannabis for anyone under medical supervision, and make it available in a safe, effective and relatively inexpensive manner.

[lunatica]

65. I heard the tax would be 50% of the going price per ounce.

Revenue is revenue.

[Flaneur]

78. The bill specifies $50 PER OUNCE, not half the going price.

For kind bud, the going price is around $400, so that would be a 12.5% tax.

[lunatica]

80. Thanks for the correction. I appreciate it!

[Peace Patriot]

66. It shouldn't be so difficult, in a democracy, to change a disastrous policy like the 'war on drugs.'

Prohibition (of alcohol) lasted only 13 years, until people realized how insane it was to create such a lucrative criminal trade.

Marijuana was fully criminalized in the U.S. in 1970, but it began to be criminalized long before that, with the "Marihuana Tax Stamp Act" of 1937--with a contrary trend occurring simultaneously, i.e., U.S. Dept. of Agriculture film, "Hemp For Victory," but criminalization won out, alas, as a policy of the FDR administration. The great irony is that FDR made it a campaign promise to repeal Prohibition (of alcohol), which FDR fulfilled in 1933. Criminalization of marijuana has lasted FORTY YEARS, and if you include the "Stamp Act" period, about SEVENTY YEARS.

How stupid can a society be? How rigid and corrupt can a democracy be, that we have allowed this to go on for 40 to 70 years--with severe curtailment of our rights as citizens, the creation of vast worldwide criminal networks, the creation of a vast fascist police establishment at home and abroad at the cost of multi-billions of dollars--$6 BILLION to the corrupt, murderous Colombian military alone, resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands of union leaders, peasant farmers, teachers, human rights workers, journalists and others--the destruction of millions more innocent lives through prosecution and imprisonment here and elsewhere, the creation of a fascist prison establishment, the privatization and corporatization of these fascist police/military establishments, and the vast diversion of resources that could be used for education, health care, job creation, infrastructure, emergency services and numerous other dire social needs, including the use of our courts and entire justice system to address REAL problems (for instance, prosecution of REAL criminals).

Our democracy is sick unto death everywhere you look, but the criminalization of marijuana is one of the most maggot-infested aspects of the disease that is killing it. I greatly appreciate the work of elected officials such as California Assemblyman Tom Ammiano and the members of the Assembly Public Safety Committee, but I have got to ask WHO IS CONTROLLING THE OTHERS?--the three who voted against it on this committee, and the "powers-that-be" throughout the federal and state governments, at every level, who are BLOCKADING THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE and THE RULE OF COMMON SENSE?

[Zhade]

71. They're probably idiots who believe pot's harmful, despite plentiful evidence that it's helpful.

Even some here aren't informed enough to realize how wrong they are about this medically-proven beneficial plant.

[Richard D]

77. You can't divorce the war on drugs . . .

. . . from the prison/industrial complex - the new slavery.

[Ticonderoga]

74. Are you telling me Pot is illegal?

OMG I'm a criminal.

[DebbieCDC]

81. I have been saying and saying to anyone who will listen

for 30 effing years that the solution to this country's budget deficits is to legalize pot, sell it in state-controlled stores (e.g., liquor stores) and charge a state tax.