I'm finally getting around to pot. You know, the piece about the herb that I said I was going to do early last week and then got distracted. What got me thinking about the subject was an article I ran across several days ago. California, a true pauper among the states, $26 billion short in the state's budget, has seen serious moves made in the state legislature on the pot question. Actually, it's not much a question: the state legislature has a proposal to legalize weed outright so as get at the $1.2 billion in estimated tax money it would raise. A congresswoman has also introduced a bill to lay a tax on medical marijuana, which is legal in California. (Actually, this kind of surprised me. I would have thought they were taxing it already.) Governor Arnold Schwartzenegger has called for serious discussion of the subject. Bottom line is that no action on this subject is about to happen in California this year. But . . . marijuana is, in my opinion, on its way to legalization. It's power to raise dollars for state governments staggered by the recession is not going to go away.
Articles like this one certainly seem to indicate that marijuana is a growth industry in California, and as in so many other things, as California goes, so goes the nation. Pot is a massive business in California. Last year's crop was worth about $17 billion. That is a lot of scratch.
6 comments:
Just to show you I can write about organic substances used for ships' rigging or for smoking:
Your surprise that medical marijuana in California is not already taxed is an attitude which serves well to highlight the "Cash for Clunkers" discussion....
Washington D.C. politicians are interviewed: are you surprised how popular this program was?
And they are surprised. Everyone is surprised.
Every one is surprised that a substantial gift of money from the government ( my "rebate" was $300 - not substantial in my dictionary) is popular;
everyone in D.C. is surprised that if you treat people right, give all of them $, not just the top 5%, people will smile;
people in D.C. are amazed that if you do not sic on us the dogs of the IRS and the FBI and cops and whatever impostures of security we have to bedevil us out of our rights, fortunes, and pursuit of happiness, we will be happy!
They are surprised!
Exactly so we expect anything like medical marijuana - an item which decreases our suffering - to be taxed and controlled, doled out and given to us begrudgingly by a government we expect to tax the bejeesus out of it to make our suffering more acute......so we may go hat in hand and ask for more, please, sir.
Indeed. You make a great point about the politicians, almost all of whom have completely forgotten about whom they are supposed to be representing and serving as lawmakers. But don't expect their surprise to translate into anything remotely resembling concern for the common good. This phrase, have you noticed, is no longer much uttered by politicians.
Did you buy a new car? Is this the rebate you refer to? I have not paid much attention to the "Cash for Clunkers" thing. We're a single car family, and we won't be buying any more new cars. Period. Everything used for us from henceforth.
No. Blast my headlights! I gave mine to charity last fall for $500 max. when I could have gotten $4,500.
Never did buy a new one. I refused to pay more than anyone else, and at the time the US companies still offered substantial employee discounts.
Last December, Ford said "employee pricing for all", so I went to the Ford dealer.
They told me I would be paying "old" employee pricing, while the employees got even more discounts, putting their cost under mine.
I left.
Now, of course, the right is screaming that since "the government" could not run a "simple" program like Cash for Clunkers, how could it possibly fix health care? Like civility, employment of logic even at the kindergarten level has been shelved.
Same logic leads to: how could it possibly win a war?
or
how could it possibly effectively administer a system of 800 military bases?
or
how could it possibly catch Osama bin Laden?
Precisely, but we really shouldn't be calling it logic.
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