California is broke. Seriously broke.
So broke that it’s issuing IOU’s to its residents instead of tax refunds.
Apparently we’re 42 billion in the hole.
Now I’ve never really looked into how state or federal budgets really work, and I really have no idea if it’s even possible to recover enough money to fix a problem that large. It all looks pretty hopelessly fucked up me. At the very least we have to seriously rethink how we’re getting by both as a state and as a nation. It’s pretty obvious to anyone paying attention that the way we’re operating right now is just a mess. We’ve clearly got to think outside the box, and that is exactly what Assemblyman Tom Ammiano is proposing we do. He introduced a bill Monday morning that would legalize Marijuana in California and tax it to the tune of 1 billion dollars of revenue for the state per year.
http://blogs.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2009/02/get_up_stand_up_ammiano_introd.php
The exact wording of what the bill proposes is this: “”Remove all penalties under California law for the cultivation, transportation, sale, purchase, possession, and use of marijuana, natural THC and paraphernalia by persons over the age of 21,” “prohibit local and state law enforcement officials from enforcing federal marijuana laws”
Pretty fucking ground breaking shit. Can it actually be passed? I have no idea.
I don’t understand any of that shit. All I know is that Tom Ammiano is a bad motherfucker, and that we need more assemblymen like him. What he’s doing is making sense of a highly charged issue, and I think he couldn’t have picked a perfect time.
Marijuana is the #1 cash crop when compared to the average production values of other crops in the united states at over 36 billion dollars a year in sales, and all that shit is under the table and un-taxed. That’s a lot of money the state and local government is missing out on, and in this day and age they simply can’t afford to keep it illegal.
If there’s anything good coming out of this fucked up economic situation we’re in, at least it’s forcing people to look at marijuana as a source of possible revenue for the state, instead of just a source of revenue for private prisons, which it is now. Some sources online list non-violent drug offenders as constituting over 20% of the federal prison population, with a large percentage of those being in jail for marijuana.
That’s completely and totally insane in an informed culture like the United States of America in 2009.
This isn’t 1930, and you can’t hide from the facts anymore.
Cigarettes kill over 400,000 people a year in this country alone.
Alcohol kills over 75,000.
150 people die all over the world each year because coconuts fall on their fucking heads.
Marijuana? 0.
That’s 0 EVER.
The estimated amount of Marijuana that you would have to smoke to kill yourself is somewhere around 1,500 pounds. That’s all just an estimate really, because researchers have never been able to successfully give an animal enough pot to kill them.
There are a lot of horrible, evil drugs out there in this world that can ruin a person’s life and tear families to pieces when one of its members is caught in it’s ruthless clutch and they should be eradicated from our society.
Marijuana isn’t one of them.
It’s time to finally end all this stupid shit and let grown adults have the freedom to choose what experiences they’re going to have.
That’s really what it boils down to at the end of the day; it’s just an experience. If it’s not going to kill you, what is it going to do? It’s going to give you a very particular experience that you’re not going to find any other way.
It’s a plant that gives you a different perspective. It’s a turbo charger for your imagination, it soothes pain and calms nerves, it makes sex feel 100 times better, it makes you more compassionate and more affectionate, it connects you to nature in a way that makes you feel like you’re seeing the world for the very first time, it’s the source of 99% of the comedy I write, and it’s never killed a single person EVER.
All that, and if they catch you with it they can lock you in a cage. If that’s not fucked, I don’t know what is.
It seems like a frivolous issue, but I truly believe that legalization would completely change the direction of our society.
Marijuana’s effects promote compassion and an appreciation for your fellow man.
If there’s ever a time when we need something like that, now is it.
The New Jersey State Senate passed a medical marijuana bill on Monday as well. It now moves on to be heard by the Assembly.
Shit is changing people, right before our eyes. I think someday in the future children will study this culture that we have today and laugh at us the same way we laugh when we read about people that thought the world was flat.
Looks like I may be moving to Cali. If a law like this ever passes, do you think big business or Big Tobacco will produce shitty week “Marijuana Cigarettes” that suck and are filled with harmful chemicals? Also Joe, have a side question on the topic. You once said that Marijuana should definitely be tested in mma competition although you stated many times that it dramatically helps the training of an athlete. What is the difference between training and competition while being blazed? Don’t the hard core guys train as hard as they compete?
I agree with you completely. If marijuana was gov’t regulated, at least in its infancy, we’d get out of this financial rut we’re in and start bringing in money for something we have everywhere anyway. The government needs a product, something they can sell themselves, making it off of our tax money isn’t cutting it.
I don’t know if I’ll move, but I’d definitely vacation a LOT.
Thanks, Joe!
Laura
After reading Joe’s blog for a couple days, I found myself asking the obvious question, “Why, exactly, is marijuana illegal?” The truth goes well beyond just propaganda, greed and racism.
Check out this great article:http://blogs.salon.com/0002762/stories/2003/12/22/whyIsMarijuanaIllegal.html
There are already companies ready to jump on this. And yes i saw this bill go into action and i thought myself. Genious… Absolutly couldnt be a better time and situation to bring up the whole marijuana topic. The whole problem for years was the state or government couldnt completly control and tax the sale of marijuana. If they look deeper into the system they could take the money out of drug dealers hands and put it in thier own pockets. As much as i hate that right now (giving more money to the rich) we are in a crisis and need to do something about it. Obama’s economic situlus plan is just kickin ourselves in the ass for furture generations. Our national debt will skyrocket. And 10 years from now we all will look back and be like What The Fuck…. Fuck the monotary system. Largest scam ever created.
As always, excellent point. You’d probably be interested in this article from Bay Area columnist, Mark Morford http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2009/02/20/notes022009.DTL&nl=fix
I’m glad my husband convinced me to go see your show a few years back during a trip to LA – you are far more insightful, thoughtful, intelligent, enjoyable and freakin’ hilarious than just “the Fear Factor guy????” I had written you off to be. Shame on me. You rock.
We all know what the pundits and opponents of this bill are going to say. They are going to get on some media outlet and protest against the bill the same way they have done for nearly a century: through an illogical emotional appeal. It’s going to go something like “We cannot allow our children to be bombarded with this dangerous gateway drug because of a bad economy and fiscal irresponsibility.”
It’s the same fallacious, straw-man argument.
But let’s assume for a second that this bill passes. How is Cali going to prevent the DEA from coming in and raiding marijuana farms across the state? Federal law prempts state law, so I see the feds stepping in if this law passes. The feds have been passive on the loose laws surrounding medical marijuana, but a full-blown legalization would create an uproar on the far right and federal agencies would be pressed to step in.
Conversely, the overwhelming media coverage would finally put the spotlight on the current marijuana laws and this would force people to ask themselves “why is marijuana illegal/” Asking that simple quesiton would reveal the inherent flawed assumptions of marijuana use.
Keep in mind: That budgets are not about the total money raised, it’s about how it’s distributed,; who gets what. A billion annually might seem like a lot, but where will it get distributed? The money currently allocated to all the lawyers, law enforcement, incarceration facilities, etc., not to mention what the government earns off the black market side of the drug trade (if you believe in that sort of thing) is what you need to measure that 1 billion against.
I mean, logically you could earn that 1 billion for the state by legalizing marijuana, and then add what you would save in legal and law enforcement costs alone by legalizing it would be astronomical. You could add all that wasted money back into the system as well. but there is too much money in law enforcement and incarcerating people. And the guys running the system, and passing or denying legislation, are the ones acting as conduits for all that budget money. They will never let a drug, that allows them to move around so much money, be legalized, and jeopardize their jobs, and their place as a middle man for all that cash.
A complete re-calibration of the entire system is necessary before anything substantial will change.
-ursus-
Wonderful insight as always Joe. I appreciate that, like me, you admit you can’t completely understand the true “fuckedupedness” of the situation… and sadly, I suppose that’s exactly how they want it. So they can keep throwing around false solutions to keep their jobs, and the hole we’re in just keeps getting deeper. At least we are trying to understand and come up with solutions to the abyss our current leaders our leading us through.
I’m guessing you have already heard about it, but if not, you should check out the film “Zeitgeist” from ‘07. It attempts to uncover the reasons that so many things are as fucked up as they are, and unlike many bullshit documentaries, might even offer some solutions and hope. It is free to watch online, and if you have the time, I highly recommend checking it out. It covers everything from religion to politics, to banking… and they have even recently released an Addendum, covering further topics.
Its pretty speculative of if it would actually make more money for the government through taxes, or by busting people growing something natural and taking everything you can from those people. Theres always going to be people growing their own and taxing that would be a bitch, but at the same time busting people selling large quantities of dope brings in cars, money, houses and whatever else the government can grab at.
At the same time theres guys like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXHfkXds0E0 (I highly suggest watching it, a little slow at first but it only gets better and more interesting to watch) that would probably more than willingly pay taxes and grow quality and quantity to not have to deal with what he already does have to.
Regardless, the whole war on drugs and this being a gateway drug is probably going to last awhile yet but I do agree that its actually moving in the right direction.
As a side note, I’ve tried to register on your forum about four times in the last month and your verification image shows no numbers or letters and just a set image making it impossible. Even after refreshing it multiple times and trying other browsers.
Well put good sir, well put. As a proud Canadian living in British Columbia, it’s about time we seriously make a push to legalize pot in North America and tax the shit out of it, but put the taxes towards health care, education and paying off all our debts. Now for a plant that doesn’t really hurt us at all, there’s even a documentry that add’s to the case and like Joe said, IT DOESN’T FUCKING KILL ANYONE EVER. So with that said lets try and legalize this shit!
Before I say this, I want to make it clear that I support the use of marijuana. However, you may be too quick to get behind this bill without considering some of the negative repercussions. I can’t believe that I’m the first person to bring up the possibility that this may increase crime. Please try to follow my logic for a moment and hear me out, Criminals arrested for marijuana crimes would be released. That includes violent criminals who could only be booked for marijuana charges (which, by the way, happens all the time). These people will most likely go back to criminal activity, based on a recidivation rate of nearly 60% (according to http://www.answers.com/topic/recidivism). We’ll have a flood of criminals back on the street, strengthening gangs. Simultaneously, the cultivation and distribution of marijuana would now be legal and gang activity would be unregulated on a new front. Gangs will expand territory, fueling violent turf wars and not just in Compton. Joe, I know that you are good with logic, so if you find any flaws in mine, I’d love to hear it. That goes for the rest of you guys, too.
I think we have to look at all aspects of our society, life as we know it, to grasp the petty details involved and why things are the way they are. Like many children I had a head full of questions and being a child in the 90’s I got the most popular answers; “because that’s the way it is”, “because I said so”, and the ever famous, “because that’s the way God wants it”.
Of course, for me, that was not good enough and all the questions I had then, piled up as I aged. By the time I was twenty and well off to wander freely, I stuck to the library and the woods for my quest on answering how things came to be and what religion really is on top of many other nagging questions in the back of my head. Along the way I picked up several authors and animals that came up with their own conclusion and with anything you read or see, you interpret the subject in your own way
What I got from what I learned, first: perception is everything and we all see the same thing completely different. We have two different sets of eyes, our physical eyes which see only 2,000 thousand images of what our mental eyes see which is over 4 billion images per second, so my next questions was “what are the other images we don’t see?” Second: the way things came to be was a bunch of people role playing Risk/Monopoly and was more interested in mass producing for power and control than just relaxing on the beach, in turn there were groups that didn’t want to join them or submit to their lifestyle and were forced to submission, which is how armies started. Third: submission is what led to their domination (takers VS leavers’ theory).
So all this time we have been submitting and forced to live a certain way that no one can even answer why. So I don’t think the question is if California will luck out and be one of the lucky states that gets to legally enjoy smoking pot without the ‘man’ getting in the way, I think the real question is when are we, the backbone of society, the ones that make it all possible for them to control us, going to quit submitting and finally stand up and tell them to fuck off once and for all?
If there are trillions of particles that we create everyday and call it reality, isn’t it ultimately up to us what is being created and not a group of people on their idea of the way things should be? Isn’t up to us if we decide to grow basil for food and pot for enjoyment? Money does grow on trees; we create it from trees and let others decide our lives on a daily basis, and for what? Depression, debt and disease, I’m sorry but that’s not a life to me and the only way to change that is us changing it, it might not be enough to just stop submitting, there might have to be an all out war but if you’re not willing to fight than you’re not willing to live.
I guess what I’m really getting at, is can anyone really sing all the words to R.E.M. “It’s the end of the world as we know it”?
Six O-clock, TV hour, ribble dabble, scribble dower…
The only thing I am worried about with marijuana getting legalized is the possibilities for companies to add harmful additives. Look at cigarettes, theres a WHOLE lot more in cigarettes than just tobacco. I would hate to see that happen with marijuana too.
Excellent article Joe; and others who have commented that are like minded. Still, if this is passed I know that my wife will be growing her own in the backyard and that won’t add to the tax revenue. However, it would relieve the enormous cost of “fighting the war on drugs” Check this out
D’oh
http://www.drugsense.org/wodclock.htm
“If the words “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” don’t include the right to experiment with your own consciousness, then the Declaration of Independence isn’t worth the hemp it was written on.”
– Terence McKenna
Its a giant step forward, and I hope marijuana becomes legalized across the board. I feel like I drive better at times because of it lol. Not intentionally trying to steal from Hicks here, but with some people it should be mandatory that they smoke pot before they drive.
But since I’m anal about history, eh who am I kidding I’m just anal at times. The people who thought the Earth was flat tends to be more on the side of a legend for Christopher Columbus. Aristotle back 350 BC knew the Earth wasn’t flat, and other Greek Philosophers wrote shit about longitude and latitude way before Columbus. Just imagine how intelligent these people would have to be to figure that shit out then.
But back to marijuana. There is no rational argument against it, and there most likely never will be. Its all about the government trying to show some semblance of a dictatorship because they love to inject fear in all of us. But anybody who has smoked pot more than once or twice knows it can’t do shit, but make the things around you taste better, and make you pay attention to the little things you might’ve ignored.
i really like the description of ganja’s positive effects at the end of the message.
couldn’t have put it better myself.
let’s hope it happens, seems like this might have a chance,
although my understanding is that the politicians are only using an economic argument to push for this and not really mentioning personal freedom or liberty.
It seems like they just need the money right now, so it’s not the most compelling, argument, but money talks right.
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