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SAN FRANCISCO -- A state legislator proposed legalizing the sale of marijuana in California, saying the plan would generate more than $1 billion annually for the cash-strapped state.

Assemblyman Tom Ammiano introduced a bill Monday that would legalize possession and sales of the drug for people aged 21 and older. The legislation would impose regulations and taxation similar to those for alcohol sales. Federal law makes it a crime to possess or sell marijuana, so the measure, if passed, would likely face an immediate legal challenge.

Mr. Ammiano, a San Francisco Democrat who is well known in the state as a champion of liberal causes, proposes a tax of $50 on an ounce of marijuana, which sells for a few hundred dollars on the street.

California's dire financial situation was the impetus for proposing the bill, said Quintin Mecke, a spokesman for Mr. Ammiano. The state, which last week closed a $42 billion budget deficit through steep spending cuts and tax increases, should be making money on pot sales, Mr. Mecke said. He estimated that marijuana is a $14 billion-a-year crop in California.



The pot-legalization bill will be up against significant opposition. "It's one of these [proposals] that is based on fallacious assumption that if we could only legalize marijuana, that we will have fiscal and social Shangri-La," said John Lovell, a lobbyist who represents three California police groups.

California has been drifting toward more-permissive approaches to pot. Various ways of decriminalizing marijuana have been considered for years in the state. In 1996, state voters passed a ballot initiative legalizing medical-marijuana use. Medical-pot regulation has been left largely to local jurisdictions, rather than statewide agencies.

But last summer, California Attorney General Jerry Brown created controversy by issuing restrictive new guidelines on how medical-marijuana operations should do business. He said that they should be small nonprofits and indicated that larger operations may be operating illegally.

A Zogby poll commissioned by a group that backs legalization found last week that 58% of West Coast respondents approved of selling and taxing marijuana like alcohol or cigarettes. A Rasmussen poll last week found that 40% of people nationwide support legalizing marijuana, with 46% against.

A spokeswoman at NORML, a group that backs legalization, said about a dozen states have decriminalized the use or possession of pot in some way. Alaska has one of the nation's most-relaxed rules, with no penalty for possessing one ounce or less in a residence.

—Justin Scheck contributed to this article.

Write to Stu Woo at Stu.Woo@wsj.com