The Audacity of Dope-Could legal marijuana save California’s economy?

[babylonsister]

The Audacity of Dope
Could legal marijuana save California’s economy?
By Jeff Segal Posted Wednesday, February 11, 2009 - 10:36am


Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps has made marijuana a popular topic. He was photographed smoking from a bong, lost corporate sponsorships, and was suspended from the sport as a result. But celebrities aren't the only ones thinking about dope.

Some legislators in California have pot on their minds, too. That's because the government of the biggest economy in the United States is facing a massive budget deficit whose pain would be alleviated by decriminalizing marijuana.

California's current deficit stands at a whopping $15 billion and is expected to reach $42 billion next year. And the state run by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has virtually run out of cash. It recently delayed $3.5 billion of payments to taxpayers and counties.

While nearly all U.S. states currently face budget shortfalls, California's deficit is more than one-third of its general fund. That's largely due to its dependence on income taxes, which slide during a recession. And the state can't easily borrow due to the government bond-market freeze. Moody's even warned it may downgrade the state's rating.

There's no easy fix to the problem, as any solution likely requires cutting benefits and social services—tough political choices for Schwarzenegger. But the state does have an abundant natural resource it may be able to draw on for help.

more...

http://www.thebigmoney.com/articles/judgments/2009/02/11/audacity-dope

[tekisui]

1. KNR!~

[grannie4peace]

2. that's where i met mary :)

[ShortnFiery]

3. Excellent Idea!

[lynnertic]

4. error in article - phelps lost ONE corporate sponsor. n/t

[liberalmuse]

5. Uh, yeah!

Legalize it!!!

[Peace Patriot]

6. Good idea! Long, LONG overdue!

But you gotta wonder about the $80 billion that Bushwhacky Texas energy barricudas stole from California a few years back ($10 billion by Enron alone), and that we never got back, nor saw any effort to recover, after Schwarzenenron was thrust upon us in that weird, weird Recall election (first big testout of Diebold & brethren's 'TRADE SECRET' code, with 125 candidates on the ballot--easy distributive programming opportunity).

So, if Obama is able to turn things around, and government revenues start flowing again, and we get the economy back up and running, and maybe even retire some debt, they will just be back to steal it all again.

That's my problem with all this. If you don't punish the perps for massive thievery from government coffers, and from consumers and ratepayers, and for massive lying, and for price gouging and war profiteering, and godawful things like torture, they're just gonna be back and do it all again--steal it all again, kill again, rule by executive fiat again, keep shredding the Constitution until there's nothing left of it, and stealing elections all over again.

So I just don't know. The marijuana industry bail us out? Yeah, I think they could. And when we're solvent again?

We have a better Sec of State now (than Schwarzendeficit's appointee), so maybe we could run at least a 1% transparent election, with better oversight, security and fairness, and maybe find a NEW candidate for governor (would Tom Chretien jump parties? he's great--ran against Feinstein as a Green), get a Green-Democrat running, who'll make this THE issue. I have no doubt that Californians would LOVE it, but much doubt about the voting machines, even with Debra Bowen in charge. Maybe Jerry Brown will do it. He was touting himself for governor the other day, reminding everybody that he used to have radical ideas. What a comeback that would be, eh? Legalize marijuana, with Obama in the White House (who I don't think would send in 'Homeland Security' to shut the state down), and the guy who invented 'green' government returning to the expensive 'new' governor's mansion that he refused to live before, and maybe would refuse to live in again--until it had solar panels and compost toilets and a patch of medical marijuana plants in the solarium!

Marijuana taxes would probably not only put us in the black, we could restore some of California's former glory, such as a totally FREE university education to all qualified California students!

Weed saves the day! I love it!

Bring back the '70s--that wonderfully hopeful time, when we might have taken a better road, as a state and a country.

--------------

CORRECTION: A tax on weed would not put us in the black, says the article. But it would start turning things around, in my opinion, and reconnect with our better selves, as Californians and Americans. Weed was part of a larger social revolution--"free weed, free food, free clothes, free music, free love!"--and was and is also intimately connected to the environmental movement. The back-to-the-lander hippies who went to Mendocino not only grow marijuana, they grow organic veggies and marketed solar energy panels before anybody else. A free-wheeling, free-thinking, free-enterprise culture, that believes in community, reverences Nature and has been into sustainable living for decades. It's a renaissance waiting to happen--a culture that is more mature, much stabler, older, business-savvy and still idealistic. Weed is symbolic of many things, including its incredible versatility as a plant (a medicine, rope, cloth, paper, oil, fuel). We need that idea--versatility--as well as other hippie ideas. Make love not war. That was a good one! We need a new basis for rebuilding everything.

[Wiley50]

7. I think tax revenues could be nuch greater than estimated

I'd like to see what quantity overall and how much tax was figured.

I think with open access there would be much more volume of consumption (just re: tourism)

and a 100% tax or more would be doable considering production costs (just look at the tax mark up with tobacco)

I see the figure of $400 to produce a pound of pot (not if openly cultivated in huge amount of acreage like other crops i.e. corn)

Pot doesn't require the huge amount of fertilizer that corn does. Labor involved in sexing plants, ect would be most of the costs
That could be reduced by growing clones. And outdoor yield is much greater.

thereby putting large numbers to work at relatively easy work. Hell, I'd almost pay them for the job (just the resin I could scrape off my hands each night= Free hash)

All in all, If CA did this it would crack the issue open nationally, states would demand national legalization (to get their share of the pie too)

But could AHRNOLD BE CONVINCED NOT TO VETO THE BILL?

[orleans]

17. But could AHRNOLD BE CONVINCED NOT TO VETO THE BILL?

please...that pothead is just waiting for something like this to float up on his desk!

}( :smoke:

[truedelphi]

21. Since living in Lake County I have met two guys who body trained w/ Ahnold

And both talk about how much he liked the stuff.

[orleans]

23. i know. now...if we could only have had people

speak freely of the fuckhead while he was squatting in the white house (but i guess they all feared for their lives if they thought they'd ever say anything.)

[truedelphi]

24. Thanks for that bump

:toast:

[ourbluenation]

8. The emerald traingle could fund the entire state...

the local cheerleaders held a fundraising car wash up here that raked in $12,000 for washing just 4 cars.

[Ghost in the Machine]

9. Legalization, coupled with taxation, could help save the whole US economy...

I've been saying this for 30 years, and have no plans of being quiet about it in the future. We need to get our own lobbyists, people willing to stand up and speak out to our government, and get marijuana legalized on the federal level as well as on state levels....

[crimsonblue]

10. I think legalizing marijuana would bring in a lot more than $3 billion to the state annually

Considering that pot is the #1 cash crop in the country even though it is illegal means that it is raking in the dough. Add in the fact that hemp could be used for oil, clothing, etc, and you have an entire new economic sector. I think the state could pull in $5-10 billion annually, which would be enough to help pull the state out of near-bankruptcy.

[Warren DeMontague]

11. But! But! But! You Can't DO THAT!

Nooooooooooooooo!

[Vinnie From Indy]

12. The first state that does it will hit the tax receipt lotto

Pot is the number one crop in Kentucky and there are literally tens of thousands folks burning the bulb throughout the midwest. The amount of money that is already sloshing about in the weed trade is staggering. Legalizing and taxing it would be a huge money maker for government. Add to that the ability to grow industrial hemp for paper etc and the numbers grow even larger. The War on Drugs is now and always will be a war on Americans freedom.

[Omnibus]

14. Don't forget hemp oil...

...it would be a MUCH better choice for biofuels than corn, or virtually anything else that's being considered right now.

Also, the fiber we don't use for paper makes great fabrics, the seeds we don't squeeze for oil are tasty and healthy, and its leaves and buds are a nonaddictive nonlethal painkilling antidepressant.

The only way it could be a better crop is if the roots gave us antigravity or something.

Crap, maybe they do, and we just haven't realized it yet.

[dysfunctional press]

15. the roots may not give us anti-gravity, but there IS something about them...

"...hemp helps prevents soil erosion and that hemp's deep root structure causes nitrogen washing by bringing nutrients up to the surface. Lohmeyer also said that hemp's location requirements are better than any other crop. One of the few American presenters at the symposium, Professor John M. McPartland, gave a short but detailed lecture on diseases and pests. McPartland discussed many of the factors that can cause disease including fungi, mold, mildew, leaf spot, bacteria, viruses, pollution, and low nutrients. He also talked about how hemp can be used to control parasitic worms called nematodes. Nematodes, which are a problem for farmers in central Canada, destroy the root structure of their host. Because most nematodes do not attack hemp roots, planting hemp in rotation helps to remove these pests, thus improving the quality of the soil for subsequent non-hemp crops."

http://www.hempology.org/JD%27S%20ARTICLES/BIORESOURCE.html

[Mnemosyne]

13. KnR. n/t

[Incitatus]

16. How much state owned land does CA have?

I wonder if there could be a scheme to sell it to private entities (loggers, developers etc)to make up some of the deficit.

[opihimoimoi]

18. More Weed...Less WARS.........MORE WEED....LESS WAR....= WASTE

KnR

[1]

19. oh come on. does anybody really believe this horseshit?

all of the folks living outside of the law and smoking for all of these years are suddenly going to line up at the rite aid to buy philip morris produced, federally taxed smoke???

my god, i would ask what you all are smoking but i already know.

this "solution" is ludicrous from the get-go...

[Ghost in the Machine]

28. You need to employ a little bit of deeper thinking...

Along with taxation, we would need regulations. *Anyone* growing or selling could buy a tax stamp. The tax stamps would be issued on a sliding scale depending on the size of your growth operation. Anyone selling or growing without a license and/or tax stamp could be prosecuted. We could set the same standards as the alcohol & tobacco industries.

The argument about people growing their own is a really weak argument to start with. Not everyone has the time or place to grow their own. Some people don't even have the desire to grow any. The waiting time from planting the seed until smoking the finished product will deter many also. They want their weed... and they want it NOW. Some of us like a variety, too. It's been my experience that when you smoke the same weed for an extended period of time, it seems to lose a little of its effects as your body gets used to it. You have to change up and get something different from somewhere else.


"all of the folks living outside of the law and smoking for all of these years are suddenly going to line up at the rite aid to buy philip morris produced, federally taxed smoke???"

No, they're going to keep buying it from other sources and remain secret about it, just like all those people who kept buying bootleg liquor after prohibition of alcohol was lifted. Oh... wait... yeah, *those* people line up at the grocery stores, bars and liquor stores to buy their federally taxed alcohol, don't they?

[XemaSab]

20. It could save MY economy

1/4 acre + 10,000 per plant = $$$$$$$$$$$$$.

Hell to the yeah. :D

[bridgit]

22. Yes. Latest word is to release 40% of the prison population for budgetary considerations...

That %-tile would be easily reached by releasing non-violent MJ growers and users. Legalize MJ and the economy here would pop to the surface and start floating in no time

:hippie:

[1]

25. ha! 40%? is that the "latest word?" nope. that number way wrong, sorry... n/t.

[bridgit]

26. *That* was the word yester morn, the matter is in a state of flux; you may be happy to know the...

'latest word' http://www.sacbee.com/111/story/933473.html I live in this town, I can have a suit buy me a drink in the Mexi joint across from Debra Bowen's office less than 50yds from my house and hear more than most will hear on the evening news but I'll tell'ya this...you don't see them doing the dance I see them do, whether 20-30-40-50% they'll be reaching into numbers in dear earnest very soon; Arnold is shit'n, and Ken Lay never told him it would be so hard why...

What have you heard?

[Ghost in the Machine]

27. kicking... for sane drug laws..

:kick:

[Royal Sloan 09]

29. k & r, Legalize, YES, We Cannabis! eom

[robertpaulsen]

30. Yes, We Cannabis! Excellent!

:headbang: :smoke:

[Ghost in the Machine]

32. Here's a picture I just made to go with that slogan...

It's time to get another grassroots movement going in the fight towards sane drug laws in our Country. It's just astounding that we lock people up for smoking a plant that makes them mellow...


Peace,

Ghost

[Greyhound]

31. It would go a long way to fixing their short-term mess, but eventually they

are going to have to repeal or seriously modify prop 13.

California Republiks are so batshit crazy, blind to reality, and completely indoctrinated in their wacko philosophy of everything flows from the rich, that the state legislature is permanently blocked from doing anything positive.