(CNN) -- With their budgets teetering on bankruptcy, states are digging deep to find creative ways to ease their financial woes.
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One of the more controversial ideas is to legalize the sale of marijuana, as proposed in a bill introduced in California's state legislature by Democratic State Assemblyman Tom Ammiano this year. The bill proposed taxing pot by $50 per ounce. If legalized,
marijuana could become California's No. 1 cash crop, bringing in an estimated $1 billion a year in state taxes.
Why the hell not? Can anyone honestly give one good reason why we shouldn't legalize marijuana and treat it just like alcohol? Is there any reason NOT derived from the Puritanical "Reefer Madness" bullshit, that is? It makes zero sense that we spend millions of dollars a year fighting this mythical "war on drugs" when we could be taxing it like any other commodity and putting that money to good use.
Use the same laws governing alcohol - no public consumption (i.e. how you can't walk down Main Street with an open bottle of Bud in your hands); set a limit for OUI (if there's no quick determination of how intoxicated one is with MJ, then set the limit at 0); age limit for purchase/use (I'd say 18 but if it makes the nanny-staters feel better, 21); etc. Tax it like alcohol or cigarettes, collect the taxes, and for the love of all that's good and holy, stop throwing people into prison for having a ziploc bag full of the stuff.
Please, spare me the "ZOMG it's a gateway drug". Uh, no. No it's not. Yes, sometimes people start out on MJ and move up to harder drugs, that's true. But you know what? Those same people would move onto harder drugs anyways. Ditto the "ZOMG you'll have druggies out on teh streets" (snark aside that I'd rather have dopers driving around at 15 MPH with their right blinker on than drunks...). It couldn't be any worse than it is now, and once it's legalized we can start nailing people for OUI and handling accordingly.
MJ is arguably better for society than alcohol - last time I checked, you don't often hear stories of dopers getting baked and starting wild fights or riots. I'd rather have Maynard G. Krebs macramé his ass into the sofa than Billy Beergut pound a dozen tall boys then decide he doesn't like the way the guy across the bar looked at him... Physiological strain on the body is pretty much a wash as well - MJ has lung cancer as the #1 pitfall, whereas with alcohol it's cirrhosis and liver cancer. Lung cancer kills faster and doesn't squander good organs on transplants for celebrities...
It's time, folks. It's time to drop the decades-old prejudices, old wives tales, and stereotypes and Realize It's Time to Legalize.
That is all.
16 comments:
Jay, I think you've been reading what's left of my mind....
For the record, I've never touched MJ, though I did get a couple second-hand buzzes at a couple parties in college, enough to say I don't really care for it myself. But, a lot of folks would like to have it available as an alternative, so yeah, why not?
Legalize it, tax it, and enforce abusing it like alcohol. As for a legal limit test, one can be created, just like they did for booze.
Also, set a limit on how much you can produce for self-consumption tax-free. In NY you can make 100 gallons of beer or wine per adult that lives in the household. think about that. Each adult can make and consume a little more than a quart of beer and wine every day!
"i.e. how you can't walk down Main Street with an open bottle of Bud in your hands"
Yes we can!
Jay, you really have to leave Massachusetts.
I walk down Main Street, smoking a cigar the size of Kokomo, smeared in green jelly, carrying an HK91 and drinking an ice cold bottle of yummy Upland and . . . I'm not doing anything illegal.
Shootin' Buddy
How do you start a blog post with "strip clubs" then never mention it again ?
Enforcement is almost entirely ineffective. Legalization is another question but illegalization isn't the slightest bit effecting. However, I'm not sure I'd want to start the precedent of "tax naughty things".
I see that leading to bacon tax, engine with more than 3 cylinder tax, hollow point bullet tax, and a stripper tax (to stay on topic)
If it's a "gateway" drug how about, Oh gee, I don't know - getting it out of the drug dealer distribution network and into the package store?
Taxes. Lots of taxes. Legal pot sold in ABC stores. The end of stupid laws that only ensnare people doing something that harms no one else. Less people in jail. More police for more important crimes.
A great idea. The only downside will be... Scratch that, there is no downside.
Rick,
Exactly. I still have not heard one single coherent argument against legalization. Lots of smoke and mirrors and "ZOMG THINK OF TEH CHILDRENZZZ!", but nothing based in fact...
Shootin' buddy,
Sure. Rub it in...
(Although to the best of my knowledge you can't have an open containing in Live-Free-Or-Die New Hampster, either...)
Wally,
I'd much rather see MJ taxed like tobacco or alcohol than continue to be illegal, let's put it that way.
And let's be honest here - they already tax the ever-lovin' SNOT out of "sinful" things...
And Borepatch and ASM826 get it, too... W00T!
Dumb Q: What does an ounce of pot go for anyway? The article says $50/oz tax, how does that relate to the base purchase price?
The tax thing is a chimera. It won't be much of a money maker. $50 an ounce will just run it into the black market. It will be a lot less.
Right now (Or so I am told by those marijuana smokers, because goodness knows I would NEVER partake)The "good shit" costs about $400 an ounce. -That's enough to last some people I know almost a year. Once it's legalized there's no way it's going to go for more than $200 or less, since you can grow it in your backyard (another way to avoid the tax since enforcing "unlicensed growing" is about as effective as enforcing home stills designed to make 1-gallon of booze at a time).
The reason to legalize it is that it is and always has been a completely victimless morality crime, passed out of fear of black men smoking it and raping the white wimmins.
It costs tens of billions of dollars a year in law enforcement and jail costs, criminalizes people who would never hurt a fly and puts money into the pockets of *serious* criminal organizations while ruining countless lives forever with a bullshit felony record.
I'm glad to see this finally gaining some traction.
When we get a breathalizer or equivalent for cannabis, and quit screwing around with multiple DUIs no matter what the influence is of, I'm with you 100%.
Jay G.
Post up at my site (please update your blog roll) about very related subject.
5 time bank robber gets 2 years in prison because he was "an outstanding citizen" prior to all the robberies but a druggied busted with Meth in jail (have to see the video of this poor sap) gets 16 years. What kind of world are we living in?
They want the tax to be $50.00 an ounce?! Are those people on drugs? Oh, wait.
I guess I've discovered the level of my prudishness. I have fewer problems with legalized weed than I do with strip clubs. (Not that I think the latter should be illegal; my issues are too complicated for the comments section of your blog.) And I am no fan of any intoxicant. Except vodka.
Yep. Pretty much 100% yep.
Legalize it, yes. You'll realize a LOT of savings when the cops aren't out looking for a guy who wants to roll a doobie.
Tax it? F*CK, NO!!! The government gets enough money out of my pockets already. They're a friggin' monster out of control - tax revenues are like crack to those greedy bastards. Don't give 'em any more - you don't cure an addict by giving him more of what he's addicted to.
Ross,
You'll get no argument out of me about taxes being too high and only serving to feed the beast.
However, if the choice is between allowing the disastrous "War on (some) Drugs" to continue unabated and unfettered and allowing some legalization, I'll put up with taxation for revenue creation.
It's a Hobson's choice, for certain, but remember one thing: The MJ tax is purely voluntary - don't want to give the government tax $$$, don't smoke...
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