San Francisco News Blog

Everyone who wants to smoke pot in California already does. Why not tax it? It is far and away the largest cash crop we have. The medical dispensaries already pay sales tax, with some individual clubs paying over $1 million a year in taxes! If we were to tax and regulate sales to adults 21 and over, we would generate $3-4 billion in revenue, reduce prison overcrowding, and help put gangs and drug cartels out of business. There is no logical reason not to.

There are logical reasons. Don't you know that marijuana can cause bronchitis! It really sucks to get it. Marijuana may not kill anybody, or even intoxicate most people to the coordination of a .08 'drunk' driver, but it CAN increase your chances of prostate cancer (supposedly, somewhat new claim..), from .5 percent to .6 percent? That the 'weak' link could just be that marijuana smokers on average smoke tobacco as well.
Marijuana does kill people.. It kills them through the drug laws. It ruins lives and sometimes busts go bad like when the cops use innocent college students and they get killed doing the cops dirty work. Cops have been killed accidentally with wrong door, no knock search warrants, only to have that person arrested and taken away for life for protecting his daughter from what he thought was a break in. The DRUG WAR MAKES ME SICK, and it should make anyone with any sense or logic to think similarly. Ron Paul has been advocating legalization for over 2 decades now.. Time to listen... Sigh*

I hate to rain on the parade, I'm for legalization myself, but legalizing it will allow it to be sold at it;s ACTUAL value, not the inflated-results-of-prohibition prices it currently sells for, and which are daily inflated by the DEA et al for their own propaganda purposes. If it were legal, people would see it growing anywhere or everywhere, it would become available at more reasonable prices as demanded by its worth as a commodity, and while it could still be taxed at a reasonable rate, the returns would be such as to eventually dissuade the interests of organized cartels, such as the Mexican Mafia who grow it out in our National Forests.
It will mean more revenues for the state, but be realistic- if the market for it were truly free, it would soon return to what it is- a plant that grows anyplace and everyplace. Certainly there would still be demand for custom strains, but even these would never fetch the kinds of prices currently noted.

I think people are misreading what Mecke says Ammiano's bill will say: It's a fee of $50 per ounce. This isn't setting the price of marijuana but imposing a fee (read: tax) of 50 bucks per every ounce. How much it sells for, to the best of my knowledge, isn't addressed here.

I'll be at Ammiano's press conference on Monday and let you know.

JE

@EH
Sure it may still be illegal at a federal level, but if Obama makes good on his stance on State laws that won't really matter unless your doing a large scale growing op. You don't get into federal drug laws with less than 100 plants or 50 kilograms.

Its a damn shame that people are still jailed over a handful of pot. What a waste of taxpayer money and law enforcement manpower. Its a plant people, and will grow depite the law (its a weed after all, have you ever tried to get rid of weeds!?); in fact as long as there's demand, it will be plentiful regardless. Now the question becomes, who benefits? At the moment, it's the Mexican Mafia druglords and Cartels, but that money could easily be going to the american Gov't and taxpayers. So who's better off with that money? Mind you, it (pot) will be here regardless, making somebody money.

It's time to decriminalize (or better yet LEGALIZE) ALL currently illicit substances.
The money that is being pissed away by the DEA in its "War on Drugs" could be better utilized.
The CIA might lose a bit of "covert funds" if the bottom fell out of the "black market", but, gee, "life's rough" ain't it?

The only reason marijuana isn't legal is the fact that anyone can grow their own in the back yard. In 1970 Acapoulco gold sold for $70 a pound. now it is $4000 a pound. the only thing the war on drugs has done is make people more prone to kill for the money. Ever notice that the only thing that is legal is what the gov. can make money on, such as the worst killers in the world, alcohol and tobacco. Heroin is illegal but opiate pills are sold by perscription: get it? If those who wanted to could grow their own for personal use, we could save billions of dollars and thousands of man hours. Opps. Thats too simple.