Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill by state Senator Mark Leno today that further decriminalizes personal possession of marijuana, downgrading it from a misdemeanor, like tagging, to an infraction, like a traffic ticket. Some 60,000 Californians are arrested yearly for misdemeanor pot possession, giving them a criminal record and forcing them to appear in court and pay a fine. Enforcing the state’s pot laws, which has done nothing to tamp down on monthly usage by four million Californians, costs the state about $1 billion a year, the Cato Institute has found.
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