Budget Crisis To Lead the Way to Legalizing Marijuana?
The California Tax Board has told the state that if they legalized marijuana, the state could raise $1.4 billion in revenues. This assessment looks at an actual bill pending before the CA Legislature:
The bill (Assembly Bill 390) by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, is still awaiting its first committee hearing and is likely not to be considered until next year. It would impose not only sales taxes but a $50 per ounce fee on marijuana sales, which would be licensed by the state much as alcoholic beverages are regulated.
So the taxes would be pretty steep, and I have no idea how this just doesn’t jump start a grow-your-own effort. But I wonder if California may just cross over the next revenue-generation frontier — legalizing drugs just because there is money to be made. This is, after all, the trajectory that gambling has taken — legalized and managed so that the state gets a cut plus some taxes AND some favored businesses get some goodies in the name of creating venues. I’d rather see a straightforward legalization (of marijuana certainly) rather than get there because the state needs money, but hey — this does do the trick. So what do you think about this?
Tags: legalized marijuana
I think i will gladly go do my part to help California get out of their budget crisis if this goes forward 🙂
My concern with legalizing marijuana has always been Philip Morris (or whatever they are called now) or Winston Salem, or whoever adding addictive nicotine. If it is made legal, laws also must be passed to keep it as safe and natural as possible.
AMEN!
I don’t smoke — anything.
But I don’t have any problem with the legalization of marijuana, either.
you don’t have to smoke it, RWR. that is unhealthy. 😉
It is a proven medical fact that a good medicine must taste bad and not be a source of any pleasure.
We all know that even a contact high is the first step to firing up with heroin.
Just say: “Yo!”
Well Art, I only subscribe to the “gateway” notion, when usage falls along the same parallel as underage drinking. No doubt, legalization will prescribe age criteria, but yes, off label usage has the same irresponsible possibilities as cool parents of yesterday and today who host/tolerate/serve alcohol to minors, and allow their kids to smoke. Go ahead….only makes my son/daughter raised by mean, archaic, law abiding parents outshine in work ethic–Monday THRU Friday. Dude….chill…..hang ten.
It will offer a unique dilemma for republicans who argue for states rights unless, well, they disagree with the states action, like removing segregation, enforcing air pollution standards or legalizing marijuana.
Do you make this stuff up as you go along? What Republicans opposed states removing segregation? Democrats passed then enforced segregation all by themselves. Republicans passed the Civil Rights Amendments then passed civil rights statues to enforce them. When Democrats got the Congress back under Cleveland, they repealed them the first chance they got. When Wilson took over he showed KKK propaganda in the White House and started sending a reef to the Confederate Soldier memorial.
A small contingent of Lilly white republicans fretted that Democrats were beating us over the head in the south with the civil rights issue, but even they did not favor segregation. They wanted to turn a blind eye to Democrat oppression for short term gain. It was not until Truman that some elected Democrats really joined Republicans in supporting Civil Rights. It culminated when Johnson put together a coalition of Republicans and Democrats to pass the civil rights laws in 1964 and 1965. It turned out to be great for both parties because once segregation was off the table, it allowed a more natural realignment of the parties.
Jackie Robinson and MLK sr were Republicans along with the majority of blacks because the party was the voice of equality.
Back to the thread, it is a state issue. That is where it needs to be argued. The federal responsibility is in commercial travel and at the border.
And isn’t interesting that Delusional David can’t come up with any GOP civil rights accomplishments since the 60’s. Why? Because the Dixiecrats who voted against abolishing Jim Crow took over the repub party. So that today, R’s are strongest in the Old South — where they can still muster major blocks of white voters to vote for them — since no one else will, apparently.
Let’s see wasn’t it Nixon who stood for Fair Housing, Title 9 and, the like. Wasn’t it a Republican Senate that passed a renewal of the voting rights act which was signed by Ronald Reagan. Wasn’t it GHWB who signed the civil rights restoration act of 1990 after forcing the Teddy Kennedy quota provisions out and thereby preserving the national consensus for civil rights. The American with Disabilities Act was pushed by Bob Dole and signed by Bush 41. GWB banned racial profiling and pushed for equal opportunity in the classroom for minorities who were being short changed. I think that both parties are committed to equality.
I think Republicans have done a good job. The reason R’s are so strong in the old south is because of the fact that race is no longer the policy divider it once was. When race was not an issue, evangelicals in the south united with those across the country. How is that a surprise?
The ADA was co-written by Tom Harkins and passed by a Democratic congress and the renewals don’t exactly represent any new frontiers here, right? The ban on racial profiling doesn’t apply for security efforts, so if you look like a Middle Easterner, good luck at TSA. And the NCLB BS? Please — it isn’t working our all that well and turned into an unfunded mandate on states.
Not even a good try, but there is no doubt that your party is working overtime to try to look more inclusive than it is. But the Southern Strategy still lives for you and as long as it does you can count on the South being about your only source of political success.
Oh, no a Democrat helped in the effort. It was still led by Bob Dole. Is that suppose to invalidate the effort? As I said both parties support civil rights in modern times. Your point was that Republicans stopped and I showed that they not only vote for civil rights but lead in the fight.
GWB stood against an onslaught of criticism after 9/11 and kept the ban on racial profiling. That is why we search menacing 80 year old white women in on walkers the same as Twenty year old guys from Syria. From a short term security point of view it doesn’t make sense, but from a long run perspective it does. It keeps our enemies from making plants of devises and easy adaptation. It regards the dignity of each of us and refuses to convict us based upon ethnic group affiliation.
You should just stop when you get to the revisionist history, you know.
The ‘gateway’ myth has no physiological rationale and the anecdotal evidence is rather strong.
How many of the readers of this blog have enjoyed a few bong hits? How many ‘graduated’ to heroin? I suspect that the ratio is far from unity. There is no causal linkage but there is a lot of hysteria out there.
One might as well claim that drinking wine or beer with a meal leads one to grain guzzle grain alcohol or absinthe.
There is a subset of conservatism with some libertarian and even neo-populist roots. It eschews neo-puritanism and worship of our alleged elitist betters. Some call the movement ‘SouthPark Republicans’.
So they get $1.4B? They’ll just blow it. California is doomed to perpetual bankruptcy. This is why the productive are fleeing the state; Atlas Shrugged, and as California goes, so goes the nation.
So I guess we know why you haven’t Gone Galt then — you apparently haven’t qualified for the club.
How many of the readers of this blog have enjoyed a few bong hits?
OMG, smoking dope causes blogging!