A Big Week for Marijuana Legalization

by Matt Kelley · 2010-01-13 07:46:00 UTC
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The California Assembly's public safety committee voted 4-3 yesterday in favor of a bill that would legalize marijuana and regulate it like alcohol. Although the bill likely won't go anywhere (it will miss a deadline to reach the full floor for a vote), this is the first time a statewide committee has approved such a measure and it's a sure sign that attitudes are  changing in California and across the country.

The news came a day after New Jersey became the 14th state to approve marijuana for medicinal use. Gov. Jon Corzine says he'll sign the bill into law before he leaves office this week.

The momentum toward marijuana legalization continues to grow. On Monday, activists filed a petition in Washington state that will put full legalization on the ballot before voters in November.

A poll this week in California found 84 percent of the state in favor of legalizing marijuana, and a study conducted by the legislature found that taxing marijuana $50 an ounce would raise about $1 billion for the state.

Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, who has sponsored legislation like this for several years, said this key committee vote shows that there is progress in his state.

"I think the conversation is definitely gaining traction," Ammiano, a San Francisco Democrat, said after the bill passed the committee he chairs. "There was a time when the 'M' word was never mentioned in Sacramento."

Our longterm prohibition of marijuana has been a destructive and unproductive venture. We have thousands of people in prison for non-violent drug crimes and we arrest 800,000 people a year for marijuana offenses. I wrote recently about the impact of our underground drug markets on violence in places like Mexico that provide a great deal of our supply.

As Drug Policy Alliance Executive Director wrote this morning on change.org:

Our struggle to end the dominant role of the criminal justice system in drug control is a multi-generational effort – but we should never underestimate the possibility of making sudden and unprecedented leaps forward.

Let's work together for a sudden, unprecedented leap forward on marijuana policy.

Matt Kelley is the Online Communications Manager at the Innocence Project and a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. Follow him on Twitter @mattjkelley.
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