Posted on 02/23/2009 10:50:40 AM PST by SmithL
California may be going to pot - literally.
Marijuana would be grown and sold openly to adults 21 and older under legislation introduced this morning by a San Francisco lawmaker.
Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, said the cash-starved state could generate more than a billion dollars by taxing pot growers and sellers.
Ammiano predicted that the public would support loosening marijuana laws that require substantial public funds to enforce.
"I think there's a mentality throughout the state and the country that this isn't the highest priority," he said. "And that maybe we should start to reassess."
Before California could legalize marijuana, however, it also might have to persuade the federal government to alter its prohibition on cannabis.
Ammiano said federal officials may be receptive to such changes under the administration of President Barack Obama.
"We may be on a parallel track here," said Ammiano, a freshman legislator who was sworn into office less than three months ago.
The Drug Policy Alliance, an advocate of loosening pot laws, applauded Ammiano's proposal.
"Marijuana already plays a huge role in the California economy," said Stephen Gutwillig, the group's California state director. "It's a revenue opportunity we literally can't afford to ignore any longer."
Ammiano's bill, Assembly Bill 390, would allow marijuana to be sold openly - like alcohol - in retail outlets statewide.
(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...
Pot possession is a misdemeanor in California. You don’t go to prison for it.
It's just too damn easy to grow if it is made legal.
A couple of plants will yield what the casual user would consume in a year.
Any idiot would learn real quick how to identify the male plants and kill them.
We're not talking constant care or major effort here, no more than a flower or tomato plant.
The federal government should use its delegated power to regulate commerce among the several states as the Founders intended, IMO. Do you agree or disagree?
California can't survive legalization of drugs.
Californians can get all the illegal drugs they want at an affordable price. Score one more failure for the WOD, LOL!
Until our government stops mandating Oklahoma law and the laws of other states, we should have a say in what happens in California. Once the feds are reigned in, we can talk about eliminating drug laws.
So the feds use the Wickard Commerce Clause to mandate to the states, and you want them to... use the Wickard Commerce Clause to impose a nationwide prohibition until the feds quit using Wickard to mandate to the states. Is that what you're saying?
Anyway, I want to hear your defense of Wickard as being in keeping with the original understanding of the Commerce Clause.
“Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, said the cash-starved state could generate more than a billion dollars by taxing pot growers and sellers.”
As always, the Devil is in the details. I don’t care if people smoke themselves to death as long as I don’t have to pay for it, but I somehow doubt that the kind of person who’s been operating illegally for years is going to suddenly turn legit.
I don't care, but I wish they would just face the fact that it's too easy to grow to bring in any meaningful tax money.
I don’t know anything about the commerce clause. Maybe I should but I don’t. I know pot being more readily available and the government cashing in on it, is terrible. That said, let California hang themselves on it and the decent people can move to decent states. Once their all dead from eating too many Twinkies we can move back and have beautiful land for cheap.
Well, they manage to tax booze, and I reckon I could "grow" some hard cider a lot quicker and easier than you could get some weed to maturity. Get a gallon of old-fashioned apple cider, without preservative, and leave it in a cool part of the house. It only takes a few days for it to ferment all by itself, then if you leave it out in the cold you can separate the alcohol by freezing. Applejack!
Obviously, you can brew just about anything at home, but most people don't bother. Easier to buy it, even with the tax.
Would also bring in tourist dollars....
Pot dealers do though and they WILL be put out of business if pot is legalized. Their market will dry up.
The most abused drug in this society is Alcohol, and we tax and regulate it plenty.
“We’re not talking constant care or major effort here, no more than a flower or tomato plant.”
Really? And you base that on what? Personal experience, or Personal bias?
Yes, if you just stick a seed in the dirt, water it on occasion, and wait for nature to do it’s thing, you will have a plant. Whether the result is worthwhile, well, with the small amount of care and gardening skill you ascribe to it, let’s just say it probably would be poor quality at best.
Just the same as if I simply took a gallon of unpasturized apple juice and left it to ferment, hoping when it was done, six month later, that it would be a tasty drink of hard cider.
I don’t think anyone is claiming that no one would grow their own, and I imagine, at the beginning many would try. Provided, of course, they have a yard to grow it in, or are inclined to set up a green house/grow room indoors (with all the equipment needed to do that), just as probably happened after alcoholic drug prohibition went away.
Again though, once people realize that it’s just as easy to buy it, taxes included, they’ll most likely go that route.
Now, let’s go to the math portion of this.
Let’s say, cost wise, it costs the manufacturer 1 dollar to produce a pack of Marijuana Cigarettes (that cost is probably pretty high, but for sake of argument, that would include growing it, processing it, packaging it, and shipping the end result, per pack, based on the current Cigarette model, 20 cigarettes = 1 pack).
Now, wholesale cost, pre-tax, is 3 dollars per pack, and Joe the Liquor store owner wants his mark-up, Let’s say 3 dollars, because Joe is in this to make money too.
Now, let’s say, that Uncle Sam wants 5 dollars per pack in taxes.
$12 dollars per pack, taxes included.
Considering that people who are currently using Marijuana would pay close to 120 dollars for the same amount of Marijuana, at current prices, and are not rushing out to grow their own now, what makes you think if the price was 1/10 that, taxes included, they’d be any more inclined to?
They will still grow it illegally to avoid the tax. Check out how successful legalization has worked in Sweden.
Stunning admission, but I appreciate your candor. Since you haven't bothered to educate yourself on a basic constitutional issue, perhaps you shouldn't be writing things such as:
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Once you detach yourselves from ideological aversion to federal regulations and/or tired sophistry and look at the situation on the ground, you can only agree with me.
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How can you make such a statement if you know nothing about the Commerce Clause?
Lot of poisons included in that list, which ones do you want distributed freely?
Not very well until after WW II unless you think the depression was just a little downturn in the economy.
It is not that we can't, we just don't.
I think my previous comments fit quite nicely with my more recent comment about the commerce clause. Or at least they don’t conflict. I was talking about those who fixate on the constitutional relevance of the war on drugs while ignoring where we actually are as a society with “ideological aversion”. And to the people who stupidly cite Genesis with “sophistry”.
I guess the commerce clause refers to interstate commerce, being the sole justification for federal drug laws? I don’t care about that. The overturning of drug laws has to come later and is not a positive step unless it’s accompanied by sweeping deregulation of everything the feds have wrongly stuck their noses in.
Debate is much funner and gets us further when we don’t marginalize our opponents.
Considering that people who are currently using Marijuana would pay close to 120 dollars for the same amount of Marijuana, at current prices, and are not rushing out to grow their own now, what makes you think if the price was 1/10 that, taxes included, they’d be any more inclined to?”
$12 per pack eh?
I plant ( no harder to grow than a tomato plant) will yield 16 oz of pot.
16 oz of pot would roll 500 of those MJ smokes, or 25 of your $12 packs. That still comes to $300 for growing the equal of one freaking tomato plant!
Now, millions of people plant gardens every year to grow a couple dozen tomato plants, can and store them to save at best, $50 or so over what they could buy them for.
Sorry, still too freaking to grow!
“B 390 calls for numerous other restrictions, such as banning use near schools or growing cannabis in public view, “
Is your garden “public view?” And every teenager in town is gonna be checkin’ your garden, and your window box. You’ll go out to harvest, and there’ll only be a couple of little stumps left!
LOL, obviously it hasn't worked out well at all, mainly because it hasn't been tried.
Cannabis use is explicitly forbidden in Sweden. Offenses are defined according to the amount involved and punishable by fine. In some cases the fine can be exchanged for counseling.
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