Budgetary Marijuana
I suppose I should support this proposal, as California’s budget really is a mess and the next idea may be worse, e.g., a tax on expatriates who renounced their citizenship three years ago. Still, at the risk of mixing potheads and logic, I’m curious as to how this is supposed to work. Nadene Herndon non-explains:
We’re marijuana consumers. Instead of being treated like criminals for using a substance safer than alcohol, we want to pay our fair share.
Hate to break it to ya, toots, but until the law changes, at the federal and state levels, you are criminals. Not saying you should be, just noting tautologically that the law is, um, the law. No law, however, prevents anyone from paying the state whatever amount they think their fair share is, so any pothead who wishes to help with the budget (and hasn’t frittered his money away on pot) is free to do so now.
As to “safer than alcohol,” let’s just say that while weed may be less likely to *kill* you, it’s more likely to harm you in other ways, such as making you eat too much or destroying your … um … I forgot … oh yeah, memory. And while moderate alcohol consumption has all sorts of apparent health benefits, there’s no evidence that any amount of mota is good for you.
Lastly, the notion that a tax on weed could ever make a significant dent on the California budget is laughable. What do these people think marijuana would go for on the market if it were just another legal plant? Would they tax it at an insane rate to match today’s black market prices, thereby preserving the black market as a competitor (and all the victimful crimes that go with it)? Or would they tax it like alcohol, in which case they’d barely generate any revenue?
July 8th, 2009 at 2:57 pm
Sigh. . .
Spend billions, save milions.
Where have I heard that before?
July 8th, 2009 at 2:58 pm
Or was that, spend trillions?
July 8th, 2009 at 6:22 pm
The feds have a medical marijuana program. Had it for decades. It’s one of the most underused programs available.
Activists never direct cancer patients and others to it because fed-legal medical marijuana doesn’t help create prohibition victims to politically exploit.
July 8th, 2009 at 10:09 pm
Marijuana prohibition has been a total failure and is perhaps this country’s greatest mistake. Not only has it created criminals out of nearly a third of the country’s populace, it costs our society billions of dollars every year, creates a strain on our prison system, and has little or no effect on marijuana use in the US. In some cases, prosecuting marijuana use has turned non-violent, middle class kids into violent and unpredictable, career criminals. Once a person has a criminal conviction on their record, they are far less likely to find a good job and become a useful member of society. Other countries with more liberal drug laws have much lower rates of drug addiction among their people. I invite you to my web-page devoted to raising awareness on the assault on our civil liberties: http://freethegods.blogspot.com/
.-= David Scott´s last blog .. =-.
July 8th, 2009 at 11:12 pm
Neat. But how is legalizing pot (let alone repealing state law while leaving the federal ban intact) supposed to solve California’s budget problems?
July 8th, 2009 at 11:38 pm
Xrlq:
Both State, and Federal laws need to be repealed.
To answer your question though: Pot will never actually be legalized. The government will control it much as it does tobacco and alcohol. Outrageous “sin-taxes” will be applied and the proceeds divided up between local, state and federal governments.
The relief on the prison system will save additional dollars as well as create taxpayers out of the non-violent drug offenders who don’t belong in prison in the first place.
.-= David Scott´s last blog .. =-.
July 9th, 2009 at 6:45 am
Can’t speak from firsthand knowledge, but my understanding is that pot is a hell of a lot easier to grow than tobacco, so if they legalized the stuff and tried to tax it to a price anywhere close to its present street value, why wouldn’t everyone just grow their own, instead? Even if they didn’t want to grow their own, wouldn’t the outrageous sin taxes keep the illicit market alive, at a price just low enough to compete with the licit one? I think it’s a bit naïve to discuss legalization as though there weren’t the obvious downside of increased drug abuse. Just because a substance is sold outside the law does not exempt it from the law of supply and demand. Raise the price of anything, legal or illegal, and it’s axiomatic that someone will stop doing it. Lower the price of the same, and it’s equally certain that someone will start doing it who otherwise would not have. The real question is how much prohibition-related crime and how much loss of personal liberty are we willing to trade for how much reduction in drug abuse. I lean toward the view that we’re trading too much freedom and too much crime for too little benefit, but it’s hardly a slam dunk. And as the budget balancer, it’s a non-starter.
Your point about relief on the prison system is taken. However, I don’t see it producing much budgetary relief in the short term unless we went to the extreme of not just legalizing the stuff prospectively, but amnestying all the drug dealers and drug traffickers who are in prison now. That would be a truly stupid idea, on the level of pardoning Al Capone for the crimes he did in fact commit, but probably would not have committed if we’d had the good sense not to prohibit alcohol.
July 9th, 2009 at 10:16 am
I don’t disagree with legalizing it, but there are plenty of other ways to solve the California budget shortfall.
Read my take and keep coming back for more good content.
http://libertarianhumor.com/2009/07/09/tax-e/
.-= BigEdsBlog´s last blog ..If You Can’t Beat ‘Em, Tax ‘Em =-.