A bill to regulate California’s billion-dollar medical marijuana industry cleared a major hurdle Tuesday when the state assembly’s public safety committee voted to move it forward.
AB 473, introduced by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco), would require all pot-related entities, except for caregivers and patients, to follow rules to be created by the Department of Alcohol Beverage Control.
As it stands, medical marijuana in California is “chaos,” Ammiano told The Huffington Post. “It’s never been regulated by the state as any other business. Cities and counties don’t know what to do or what they can do. Police are unsure how to respond, and the federal actions are confusing.”
Voters in 1996 made California the first state to legalize cannabis for medicinal purposes. In the years since, medical marijuana has flourished, generating more than $100 million in tax revenue each year. But in late 2011, the Obama administration launched an aggressive crackdown on California dispensaries, forcing hundreds of businesses to close and throwing thousands out of work.
Some local governments in California carefully monitor the medical marijuana industry. Others don’t. Oakland and Santa Cruz, for example, have strict rules. Los Angeles is unregulated and has been called “the poster child of chaos.”
– Read the entire article in The Huffington Post.
