Economic Crisis=Legalizing Marijuana?

Original Story (sort of...I waited so long that most California stories are out of date, thanks Chicago)


Apparently, the extreme economic meltdown in Califronia (you know, general de...er...Recession paired with 8 months of no state budget and a huge deficit) has inspired some "out of the box" thinking by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano. Ammiano is apparently suggesting the legalization and regulation of marijuana for California. Ammiano claims puting a $50 per ounce tax on the drug would bring in around $1.3biillion a year.

This isn't the first time somehting like this has been mentioned or considered, but it's the first time it's getting some actual movement. With the state being balls deep and upside down in debt and Republicans not wanting to raise taxes but offering no alternative to close the state budget gap, $1.3billion in pot sounds pretty good. Of course there are a ton of better reasons to do this.

Mexico experiences much more violence in marijuana related sales than America. Drug lords in Mexico have made millions off of marijuana and are more than willing to kill for it. Lagalized weed would sell for roughly half the current street price (due to the ability to mass produce it, ship it and avoid the overhead of police avoidence) and would basically kill the demand for illegal marijuana. This would put these guys out of a job and effectively lower a ton of crime in Mexico. Too often American politicians talk about being "tough on drugs" and "cracking down" and it's easy to sweep the Mexican statistics under the rug because they're no US citizens but they do occur and they are very real.

There's no doubt that marijuana has harmful side effects (though many are quite similar to any recreational smoking) but no more than alcohol or tabaco. Perhaps the legalization of marijuana will save Californias economy, at the very least it should save us the millions of dollars a year that are put into law enforcment of marijuana laws.