Posted on 03/13/2009 9:53:06 AM PDT by Melinda
Could marijuana be the answer to the economic misery facing California? Democratic State Assembly member Tom Ammiano thinks so. Ammiano introduced legislation last month that would legalize pot and allow the state to regulate and tax its sale - a move that could mean billions for the cash-strapped state. Pot is, after all, California's biggest cash crop, responsible for $14 billion in annual sales, dwarfing the state's second largest agricultural commodity - milk and cream - which brings in $7.3 billion annually, according to the most recent USDA statistics. The state's tax collectors estimate the bill would bring in about $1.3 billion in much-needed revenue a year, offsetting some of the billions in service cuts and spending reductions outlined in the recently approved state budget.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Eh the stupid Cali politicians will just burn through that new revenue stream just like they have every other revenue stream. They can’t stop spending no matter how much they get. Our tax dollars are Cheetos and they’ve got the munchies 24/7.
Umm, no, YOU brought up the Netherlands, not I. I began by talking about my experience living in a country that is lax about drug use and recommend everyone else do so before they espouse legalizing drugs. What did I say about the Netherlands other than I wouldn't trust their statistics and that they are the world's leader in Ecstasy production? Look it up yourself.
The cultural paradigm of expression states that discourse is a product of the collective unconscious. It could be said that any number of discourses concerning the neocapitalist paradigm of expression exist.
Scuglia implies that we have to choose between dialectic dematerialism and Debordist image. However, several discourses concerning not theory as such, but neotheory may be revealed, leaving the debate unresolved but tentatively clarified.
“THC intoxication is part of the economy of reality,” says Bataille; however, according to la Fournier, it is not so much marijuana that is part of the economy of reality, but rather the dialectic of class. However, Jivonne uses the term ‘Debordist situation’ to denote the futility, and eventually the failure, of our drug policy (His book is by no means outdated). The characteristic theme of Sheld's essay on Foucaultist power relations is the role of the pothead as participant.
“The drug culture is dead,” says Bataille. Therefore, the premise of the debate states that the raison d’etre of the observer is social comment. The subject is interpolated into a "that" which includes culture as a whole.
The primary theme of the works of Burroughs is the meaninglessness, and therefore the collapse, of pretextual reality. However, the characteristic theme of Werther’s analysis of Foucaultist power relations is the difference between society and class. Many sublimations concerning Debordist situation may be revealed.
Thus, the main theme of the works of Burroughs is not discourse, but postdiscourse. The within/without distinction depicted in Burroughs’s "Naked Lunch" emerges again in "Port of Saints," although in a more mythopoetical sense."
But if the subcapitalist paradigm of discourse holds, we have to choose between legalizing marijuana and structuralist narrative. Lyotard uses the term ‘Debordist situation’ to denote the bridge between them. Therefore, Dahmus suggests that we have to choose between dialectic theory and the neosemantic paradigm of context. Several discourses concerning the role of the writer as observer exist.
Consequently: Some call it tamjee. Some call it the weed. Some call it Marijuana. Some of them call it Ganja. Nevermind, got to legalize it. Don't criticize it. Legalize it, yeah, yeah. And I will advertise it.Singers smoke it. And players of instrument, too. Legalize it, yeah, yeah. That's the best thing you can do. Doctors smoke it. Nurses smoke it. Judges smoke it. Even the laywers too. So you've got to legalize it. Don't criticize it. Legalize it, yeah, yeah. And I will advertise it. It's good for the flu. It's good for asthma. Good for tuberculosis. Even numara thrombosis. Got to legalize it. Don't criticize it. Legalize it, yeah, yeah. And I will advertise it. Birds eat it Ants love it Fowls eat it Cooks love to bake with it So you've got to legalize it Don't criticize it Legalize it, yeah, yeah And I will advertise it
It costs $400 to grow a pound of Marijuana. There are 16 ounces in a pound. Cost per ounce = $25/oz.
Street price of Marijuana = $75/oz or $1,200/lb.
Price of tobacco = under $20/lb.
You do the math. OK, I’ll do it for you. Tobacco is 1/60th the street price of black market Marijuana.
If we legalize Marijuana, the street price goes down from $1,200 per pound to maybe $60 per pound, or 5 cents on the dollar.
I was calling the politicians IDIOTS for basing their revenue projects on the black market street price for Marijuana of $1,200/lb rather than the expected legal price of $60/lb, or even $20/lb when every mom and pop grows this stuff in their backyard and sells it at local flea markets.
OK?
The politicians are idiots to think that legal Marijuana is going to be a $14 billion industry. That is my point. They are idiots.
As for demand, I’m not buying your argument so we’ll have to disagree. Even if demand trippled, but if the price is 1/60th, then street value is 1/20th of $14 billion or $700 million. Add a 20% tax and California govt gets $70 million, as if that will close a $42 billion budget shortfall.
Furthermore, you can’t possibly compare alcohol to pot. NOBODY has a joint to wash down a pizza. You have beer with pizza, a glass of wine with pasta. It is a beverage. Most people I know enjoy it as a beverage. They enjoy a slight buzz, but they enjoy it as a beverage. Demand for alcohol comes from it being a beverage and it’s unique demand comes from the “buzz” side affects.
Outside of young people in their partying phase and die-hard alcoholics, I don’t know anyone who gets drunk on any regular basis. Yet the entire point of pot is to get stoned. You can’t use it as a supplement to something like alcohol is to a meal. You can’t use it as a substituted to cigarettes. Who smokes two packs of joints a day?
So your argument about demand doesn’t wash. Demand will increase but your using the wrong model with alcohol and prohibition. Not even close.
Guess what? Medical marijuana IS legal in California today, and there has been no surge in marijuana use, despite the fact any of us Californians can easily find a doctor who will write a perscription for it. Where is the soaring demand from legalized medical marijuana?
I can’t agree with you. Demand will not skyrocket.
I have said over and over the key to California’s Fiscal problems are at the waters edge.
Unlike legalizing drugs this is real wealth and job creation.
If California would lift the offshore drilling ban it would have billions in monies from taxes, job creation, etc..
The Oil Companies know there are potentially millions or billions of barrels of oil off the coast and California would benefit from a huge boom if it would reverse and allow off shore drilling.
With everything taken into account we could be talking a $1 to 2 Trillion impact in the economy.
It makes too much sense, doesn’t it? But it’s a CA business that doesn’t involve self gratification of any kind, probably not exciting enough of a way to make money for anyone out there to notice. If you can’t market it in a movie-of-the-week format, it goes right over their heads. Try tying profitability to solving the celebrity addict crisis, and you have a winner.
Umm, YOU mentioned the Netherlands in post #76:
The country I'm referring to in the last post is the Netherlands, not Morocco.
I then gave you sources for Dutch drug use compared to Singapore, and also compared the Dutch murder rate to the US in post #87. You replied in post #90:
I then replied in post #91:
______________________________________
That's when you switched to Morocco and Afghanistan in post #95.
So, I ask again. Do you have anything other than unsupported assertions to counter my government sourced data from The Netherlands?
I was responding to someone else’s referencing the Netherlands in post #76, not to you. Now I have to get on with life outside of FR. My “switch” was not to evade, but to make a point that I wouldn’t trust government statistics on drug use, anywhere, in any country, at any time.
Go smoke yourself into a prison cell, pothead!
Yes, of course, the law is only working if it’s enforced.
There are laws against shoplifting. I still used to do it a lot when I was a teen. But lots of people didn’t, because they were afraid they’d get caught.
If it had been legal, we all would have been doing it.
Now that’s a stupid analogy. But I suspect you knew that.
*cough* Bull$hit
We are wasting money on the demand side because we are hardly stopping anyone from breaking the laws against marijuana possession. Many millions of Americans will smoke marijuana every year, at least 25 million or so according to the government statistics, and the real amount is probably higher. I don't believe there are many out there who really want to smoke pot but don't just because it was legal. The vast majority who do not smoke pot wouldn't smoke it if we legalized it, because there are so many other good reasons not to smoke pot aside from the laws we have against it.
We are wasting money on the supply side because we are not reducing the supply. We are not making marijuana hard to find. It is easy to find anywhere in this country, really easy to find. Teens report that it is about as easy for them to get as alcohol, and according to the statistics by the way teen smoking of cigarettes has dropped so low that now more tenth graders smoke marijuana than cigarettes. Aside from not making it hard to find, we aren't making it particularly expensive either. In fact in most places marijuana can be had for a price that makes it cheaper than beer on a per use basis. It's really a cheap buzz. Even the expensive indoor grown stuff is a pretty cheap buzz because it is so potent that it only takes a little for people to reach the desired effect.
We've tried for decades to reduce the use of marijuana and to reduce the supply enough to make it expensive and hard to find. We have failed miserably at this. Over the years we've spent more than 100 billion trying to enforce the ban on marijuana and we have absolutely nothing to show for it. I call that a waste.
“If our laws no longer reflect the will of the majority of the people they govern, well, we know what that means.”
Thankfully, the percentage for legalizing marijuana has been growing steadily since the 1990s. In the last three months there have been polls by Rasmussen Reports, Zogby and CBS on opinions about legalizing marijuana. The lowest percentage for legalizing was on the Rasmussen poll where 40% were for it, 46% were against it, and 14% were undecided. On the Zogby poll 44% were for it.
The percentage for legalization has been increasing by an average of about one point a year, and it looks like that trend is speeding up. We're going to see better than 50% for it in a few short years. Already close to 60% on the West Coast are for it an close to 50% on the East Coast are for it. Look to see politicians from areas where legalization has the most support using this issue to gain a political advantage in the coming years, like this state representative in California is doing now.
It's going to be legalized, Melinda. That's coming. I know a lot of folks who feel the way you do will be in panic mode when it does finally happen, but within a few years people are going to see that the sky isn't going to fall in. We're going to be better off just like we were better off after Alcohol Prohibition ended, and people are going to be wondering why we didn't legalize it a long time ago. Even a lot of people who feel the way you do are going to finally see that trying in vain to keep up the ban on marijuana was causing us a lot more harm than good.
ex-texan was right. But we Reublicans and Libertarians failed to heed his evidence. Oh well. Let’s not cry over spilled milk, shall we?
The proposed law calls for standard sales taxes plus an excise tax of $50 per ounce. I don't think this law will pass, but eventually I think the feds are going to open things up and allow states to legalize marijuana, and I fully expect to see excise taxes plus sales taxes like we see with tobacco and alcohol. They're going to prop the prices up that way, and as long as they don't go too crazy it won't encourage a black market because most people are going to want to go to the “pot store” and choose from a wide variety of quality product at reasonable prices, product that has been produced in a regulated environment. They are not going to want buy product with who knows what on it from criminals if they have that choice. Black market product will have to be considerably cheaper than store bought for there to be any black market for marijuana of any consequence. Like you said, prices will drop dramatically, so there will be a lot of room for taxes before the cost to consumers gets anywhere close to what they are paying now for black market product. Black market producers would have to be willing to accept a whole lot more than they get now for their product from the few people willing to buy it. It's not going to be worth the effort and the risk involved. Even with high taxes, I doubt we have much more of a black market for marijuana than we have for alcohol.
“Now that’s a stupid analogy. But I suspect you knew that.”
What is stupid about it?
You seem to think that if something is illegal, it makes no difference to people when deciding whether to indulge in it or not.
I think that’s stupid, if we are trading insults.
You're right, we have NO marijuana problem in this country.
Marie, how much difference it makes varies. Most people that want to smoke marijuana don't think it ought to be illegal, so they don't care much about the law. Also, and this is very important, when you have a law like this that only a tiny fraction of those who break ever get caught, people aren't going to worry about it much. Very few pot smokers will ever get caught. Many will do it for years, thousands of times, and never get caught. The level of deterrent effect of a law is directly proportional to the level of risk of getting caught perceived by those who contemplate breaking the law. If they think there is almost no chance of getting caught, they don't worry so much about getting caught, especially when all they will get in the unlikely event that they do get caught is a basically a slap on the wrist.
Our laws against marijuana possession have very little deterrent effect. Our laws against other drugs don't have much deterrent effect either, but I think they have a little more than marijuana laws. If someone gets caught with a drug like cocaine or meth or heroin, it's generally going to be a felony and the punishments are more severe than those for possession of marijuana. Not only that but the police are looking more for these drugs and people involved with them are a lot more likely to be trouble and the types who bring unwanted attention from the police than those who only mess with marijuana. This increases the perceived risk of getting caught. Now, someone who isn't deterred by the very real possibility of becoming a lifelong hard drug addict probably isn't going to worry much about the fairly slight risk of getting caught, but still I think these laws banning possession of those drugs deter more than the laws banning marijuana possession. None of these laws are going to deter people anywhere close to as much as laws against crimes people have a good chance of getting caught committing, like your shoplifting example. You might get away with shoplifting once or a few times, but sooner or later you are going to get caught. If you smoke marijuana every day odds are you will never get caught if you are just a little bit careful about it.
ex-texan?
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