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Speakers at the hearing argued a number of issues, including whether legalization would increase or decrease crime and help or hurt children.
State tax collectors presented an estimate that Ammiano's bill could generate nearly $1.4 billion in tax revenue. They cautioned, however, that the figure depended on several untested assumptions about how rates of use and prices would change following possible legalization.
Rosalie Pacula, director of drug policy research at the nonpartisan Rand Corp., said data on the economics of marijuana were "insufficient on which to base any sound policy."
Pacula said a failed effort in Canada to increase taxes on cigarettes showed that unless taxes had a minimal effect on prevailing prices, "you create the economic incentive for the black market to remain."
As the legalization movement has gained momentum, organized opposition outside law enforcement groups has been sparse. Still, several anti-pot protesters spoke passionately during and after the hearing.
Marijuana use is commonplace among young people in his Sacramento neighborhood, said Bishop Ron Allen, president of the International Faith Based Coalition, an anti-drug religious group.
Legalizing marijuana to tax it would help fill state coffers at the expense of its kids, he said.
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Since it would no longer be a criminal offence to possess cannabis, the crime rate would go down, obviously. But this would have the effect of freeing up law enforcement for other activities more deserving of law enforcement. By stripping away the black market, the extremely charged social networks that drive the black market would fall away and distribution to young people especially would fall off dramatically.
The notion that legal marijuana sales would be some kind of cash cow to the state is false. Cannabis is too easy to grow and home growers are already a well established institution among users now. Once it becomes legal to grow cannabis yourself, not too many people will be buying the taxed stuff even though it is legal to buy.
There is bound to remain a marginal black market in the stuff, especially since it is so easy to grow and process and the legal stuff seems to be bound to be taxed so high. But this will be easy to police and fines, not jail time, will easily discipline transgressors. Those caught selling to minors would fall under law enforcement the same way those caught selling them alcohol or tobacco.