Legal Marijuana Debate Spreads Coast to Coast

It's a big week for legal marijuana.

A day after New Jersey legislators passed a bill that would make the state the 14th in the country to legalize marijuana for medical conditions, California lawmakers today are considering decriminalizing the drug for everyone. And in Denver, where medical-marijuana dispensaries outnumber Starbucks, the city council approved taxing the businesses that sell legal pot yesterday.

As they pushed through a bill in Jersey, proponents touted the restrictions that distinguish it from California where dispensaries thrive. California has a reputation (depicted on Entourage and elsewhere) as allowing almost anyone to get a prescription for medical marijuana.

"Out of the 14 states that have similar bills, New Jersey's will be the strictest," Assemblyman Reed Gusciora and bill co-sponsor tells CNN. "This bill will be model legislation for states here on out that will look to (be) legalizing marijuana. We looked at the pitfalls of California and made a more restrictive bill."

Gusciora, a Democrat from Princeton, says stress and anxiety are conditions that won't qualify for prescriptions, a distinction that separates the bill from laws in other states. Only chronic or debilitating diseases, including cancer, AIDS, and muscular dystrophy, will be covered.

"I feel like every college student would qualify for stress and anxiety and has qualified in California," Gusciora says.

New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine is expected to sign the bill into law before he leaves office next week.

Meanwhile, in California, State Assemblyman Tom Ammiano holds a hearing today in Sacramento to debate legalizing and taxing marijuana. Ammiano, chairman of the Assembly's Committee on Public Safety, estimates the state can raise $1.4 billion a year in extra revenue.