On Thursday, Representative Patricia Todd filed The Alabama Cannabis and Hemp Reform Act of 2013. The bill has been issued as House Bill-550 and assigned to the Alabama House Committee on Public Safety and Homeland Security.
The Bill
The Alabama Cannabis and Hemp Reform Act of 2013, when passed would create a system of reasonable regulation that would end the criminal prohibition of both marijuana and industrial hemp in the state of Alabama.
- Personal use of marijuana: Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the following acts are not unlawful and shall not be an offense under Alabama law or the law of any locality within Alabama or be a basis for seizure or forfeiture of assets under Alabama law for persons twenty-one years of age or older
- Medical use of Marijuana: In the interest of patients’ rights, this bill would establish separate guidelines in the authorization of the medical use of marijuana only for certain qualifying patients who have been diagnosed by a physician as having a serious medical condition.
- Regulation of Hemp: In the interest of enacting rational policies for the treatment of all variations of the cannabis plant, the people of Alabama further find and declare that industrial hemp should be regulated separately from strains of cannabis with higher delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol (thc) concentrations.
$1 Billion reasons why we should pass this bill!!!
- Conservative estimates show that the sales taxes produced from the commercial sales of marijuana would be more than $500 million per year.
- Passage of this bill would create more than 5000 new jobs.
- Passage of this bill would reduce prison overcrowding as well as costs to the court system.
- In total, this legislation should produce more than $1 billion in taxes and spending reductions per year.
- The state general fund budget for fiscal year 2013 is $1.39 billion
Full Article:
http://www.theweedblog.com/rep-patricia-todd-files-groundbreaking-marijuana-legislation-in-alabama/