Today's headline news in Calif:
SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- A state Assembly committee has approved a bill to tax and regulate marijuana in California.
The California State Assembly Health Committee will hear the bill next. However, the bill won't be moved out of the Assembly by the Friday deadline.
The bill authored by Democratic Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco.
Ammiano will re-introduce a similar or identical bill on Jan. 23.
California marijuana advocates praised the results of the 4 to 3 vote by the committee Tuesday.
"Making marijuana legal has now entered the public dialogue in a credible way. Decades of wasteful, punitive, racist marijuana policy have taken quite a toll in this country. The Public Safety Committee has demonstrated that serious people take ending marijuana prohibition seriously."
"The mere fact that there was a vote in the Assembly to regulate and control the sale and distribution of marijuana would have been unthinkable even one year ago. And if the bill isn't fully enacted into law this year, it will be soon," Tom Angell with Law Enforcement Against Prohibition said in a statement.
If approved, pot would be regulated in a way similar to alcohol.