You'd Have to be So High...

To continue with last week’s theme of ballot initiatives in California’s November 2010 election, this week we’re going to talk about everyone’s favorite topic! Legalizing marijuana! (Don’t forget your towel.)

To hear a national overview of the different views, check out this clip from This Week with George Stephanopoulos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zizS76elpiU

To hear it straight from the mouths (ok, website) of the official “Regulate, Control, and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010” check out their About Us page: http://www.taxcannabis.org/index.php/pages/about

The general idea is that, rather than continuing a seventy-year war on marijuana, which we seem to be losing both in terms of actual dollars flowing back to the Mexican drug cartels and actual dollars that we spend locking up drug offenders who are caught with non-medical marijuana, we should legalize it, regulate it, and tax it.

California has always been on the forefront of decriminalizing the use of marijuana starting in 1996 when we became the first state to legalize marijuana for medical use. In July of this year, Oakland became the first city to assess a sales tax on marijuana. The initiative has already gathered the signatures it needs to be presented on the general election ballot in 2010. (And here I thought pot-heads were lazy and had no motivation! I am appropriately impressed.)

According to The Sentencing Project http://www.sentencingproject.org/template/index.cfm) drug arrests have more than tripled in the last 25 years leading to 1.8 million drug arrests in 2005 alone. The majority of these arrests are for simple possession of marijuana and most people in prison for drug offenses have no history of violence.

Between the reduced prison costs of legalizing marijuana and the possible revenue from taxation, it kind of sounds like a deal. So what IS the big deal anyway? (Got your towel?) Well, there is still a pretty big list of questions that have not yet been answered: “Who is going to determine or regulate how marijuana is produced and distributed? Who will it be distributed by? How is the state going to collect the taxes? Will it really have an impact on the illicit trafficking and production of marijuana? Will this lead to proposals to legalize other drugs?”

All right all my business friends out there, ready for your next big business idea? Producing and distributing (selling) pot! Who knew that you too could grow up to be a drug dealer? You can drive around town in your fancy BMW and wear lots of bling. Next thing you know, you could be Snoop Dog’s best friend.

In other news, the Senate has finally passed a health care bill. Help us all. More about that on Wednesday!