Assembly Public Safety Committee advances package of bills on AI, drugs, school threats and worker safety

The Assembly Public Safety Committee met in a hearing that covered a broad set of public-safety measures, advancing several bills to the next committee while holding others for further work. Lawmakers, law enforcement representatives, civil-rights groups, public-health advocates and industry witnesses testified across debates that ranged from criminal penalties to emerging technology and drug-supply harms.

Lawmakers said the session was intended to balance public safety, civil liberties and implementation concerns. Committee members repeatedly urged additional negotiations to narrow language and preserve existing legal protections while creating new enforcement tools or transparency requirements.

The most contested items included a proposal to list xylazine as a Schedule III controlled substance (SB 6), a bill to require visible notices and remedies related to AI-generated nongconsensual images (SB 11), a measure to require agencies to mark police reports generated in whole or in part by AI and to retain drafts (SB 524), a bill targeting litigation that uses an old wiretapping statute against routine website tracking (SB 690), and proposals addressing threats to schools and places of worship (SB 19) and enhanced penalties for assaults on utility workers (SB 431). Committee members recommended that several measures move forward while directing authors to continue discussions with stakeholders.

SB 6 — scheduling xylazine

Senator Ashby told the committee SB 6 would place xylazine, an animal sedative increasingly found mixed with fentanyl in the illicit supply, into Schedule III to restrict public access while preserving veterinary use. Dr. Grant Miller, a practicing equine veterinarian, told members the drug is an important veterinary sedative but "is an extremely powerful drug and really meant to be used in livestock, in horses." Marica Cole, who identified herself as the mother of a person who died after exposure to a large‑animal tranquilizer in the illicit supply, urged the committee to limit public access, saying: "By scheduling this, it gives law enforcement the tools to stop the drug trafficking." Opponents including the Drug Policy Alliance and the ACLU said criminalization risks expanding the harms of the war on drugs and could impede research and harm people with substance use disorder. Committee…