California tax board: Legal pot could generate $1.4 billion

According to a July 15 article in the Sacramento Bee, the California tax board claims the legalization of marijuana could generate $1.4 billion in tax revenues for the state of California. Is that a sufficient reason to legalize pot? According to the article, by Dan Walters:

California could see a nearly $1.4 billion per year increase in state revenues were it to legalize marijuana, the state Board of Equalization says in an analysis of pending legislation to to do that.

The bill (Assembly Bill 390) by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, is still awaiting its first committee hearing and is likely not to be considered until next year. It would impose not only sales taxes but a $50 per ounce fee on marijuana sales, which would be licensed by the state much as alcoholic beverages are regulated.

Today, although considered illegal by federal authorities, California allows limited sales of marijuana for medicinal purposes, subject to local control, in accordance with a ballot measure approved by voters in 1996. And the state imposes sales taxes on those pot transactions. But wider sales would, under the Ammiano bill, be dependent on federal permission.

California is considered by federal authorities to be the nation's top marijuana producing state with 8.6 million pounds a year, valued at $13.8 billion, making it one of the state's largest agricultural crops, much of which is exported to other locales.