Pubdate: Mon, 20 Jul 2009
Source: Times-Herald, The (Vallejo, CA)
Copyright: 2009 Scripps Howard News Service
Contact:  http://www.timesheraldonline.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/993
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?115 (Marijuana - California)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?420 (Marijuana - Popular)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Marijuana - Medicinal)

THE GRASS IS STARTING TO LOOK GREENER

The state of California desperately needs cash. With tax increases 
off the table and its bond rating near junk statue, it has turned to 
a variety of creative methods to raise money and buy time -- paying 
state contractors, and maybe soon its own workforce, with IOUs; 
borrowing from city and county governments and the schools; cutting 
2,000 more state jobs on top of the 4,600 already laid off.

A state legislator has proposed a partial solution that is attracting 
attention -- legalize and tax marijuana. The state government's green 
eyeshades looked at the proposal and estimated that between a $50 per 
ounce wholesale fee and the state's 9 percent retail sales tax legal 
marijuana could generate $1.4 billion a year.

That's far short of filling California's $26.3 billion budget 
shortfall but this is a state that needs every buck it can get and 
hearings on the legislation are expected this fall.

There is the small matter of the growing, possessing and selling 
marijuana being illegal under federal law, but in 1996 California 
voters elected to legalize medical marijuana and there is a discreet 
but open trade in the stuff despite periodic federal crackdowns. The 
Associated Press reports that there is a move afoot for a 2010 
referendum measure that repeal all state and local laws criminalizing 
marijuana.

And, the AP also reports, three members of the Los Angeles City 
Council have proposed closing that city's budget shortfall by taxing 
medical marijuana sales.

Changing social mores and verification of its medical efficacy may 
help, but if marijuana is ever truly legalized it likely will be 
because our politicians need the money.
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake