Is this a practical solution to what many believe is the most misunderstood drug on the market?

A budget cure: Marijuana taxes?

Daniel Stein says the salvation of U.S. taxpayers could be marijuana.

As Washington breaks the bank on Wall Street bailouts, President Barack Obama’s stimulus package and other spend-now, pay-later measures, most observers agree that politicians will eventually need to increase revenue or cut spending to cover the federal government’s debts.

So are you suggesting that we can be responsible and cut spending, or we can get stoned? 

Stein believes Washington could begin to balance its books now if politicians would take a serious look at his industry. The owner of two retail outlets that he claims generate $1 million in revenue annually, Stein says he pays around $80,000 a year in sales taxes to the state of California. But the federal government, which does not acknowledge Stein’s sales as legitimate commerce, gets nothing from his business.

In fact, because federal authorities have spent time trying to close his and other medical-marijuana clubs, Washington is losing money on him.

Well, there is actually some truth there.  The drug war is a billion dollar drain on the Federal, State and Local governments.  But then again, I have a tough time accepting the argument that if crime gets too expensive we should decriminalize it.  That seems to have a serious lack of logic. 

Imagine how much the feds would save if they stopped cracking down on sellers, Stein says. 

“Cannabis is good for the economy,” he said. “It’s been here the whole time, but it’s had a bad rap the entire time.”

As more people begin to see the merits in Stein’s logic, that bad rap is changing. While legalization, decriminalization and the medical use of marijuana continue to be debated in terms of public health, lawmakers and policy analysts are increasingly touting the economic benefits of regulating and taxing weed, which the Office of National Drug Control Policy says is the most popular illegal drug in the U.S.

 And yet little is mentioned of the health aspects, aside from the medicinal qualities, as well as the social impact.  Plus while we might lose law enforcement in one sense, we would open another law enforcement aspect, the DWS patrols, increased drug testing in critical jobs where reaction time is important, regulatory overhead for the FDA.  After all, they don’t allow food, alcohol, tobacco and drugs unfettered access, so laws must be written giving safe guidelines, rules for packaging, distribution and use, and all manner of other federal foolishness.  Government just got bigger again.

 Critics of legalizing marijuana say the potential economic benefits of regulating and taxing the drug would obscure the less-tangible, long-term downsides of making it more prevalent in society.

“The argument wholly ignores the issue of the connection between marijuana and criminal activity and also the larger picture of substance abuse,” said David Capeless, the district attorney of Berkshire County in Massachusetts and the president of the state’s district attorneys association. “It simply sends a bad message to kids about substance abuse in general, which is a wrong message, that it’s not a big deal.”

Well the criminal aspects may or may not be true, but the substance abuse aspects are a legitimate topic.  Do we need more outlets for people to be addicted. 

Bad enough we have World of Warcraft.

I am on board to opening up the medicinal usages and research.  If the drug has benefit for the sick, let’s use it.  I am still on the fence as far as making it as common as tobacco and alcohol.

I think the real motivation is twofold.

First, the biggest winner is the federal government, who not only gets taxes, they may even get a population too stoned to pay attention to the fact the the government is out of control and out of touch.  The perfect social soporific, something predicted for decades by sci fi writers.

But the real evil, the real power behind this:  The Snack Food Industry.

Revitalize pot and the snack food industry takes off as more and more people have the munchies.

It is the perfect plan.

On the other hand, perhaps this is the secret agenda of all those pot soaked hippy liberals from the 60s and 70s, longing for Woodstock and smoke filled stadiums. 

On a serious note, I am on board to opening up the medicinal usages and research.  If the drug has benefit for the sick, let’s use it.  I have a hard time accepting that smoking it is the only delivery method that is effective, when epidermal patches and even vapor can work in other drugs.  So yes to medicinal, but why not experiment and find an effective way to use it, aside from bongs.

I am still on the fence as far as making it as common as tobacco and alcohol though, and if the best reason you can come up with is tax revenue, then I doubt I will hop on your bandwagon.

But by all means, lets get the discussion going and see where it leads, and for that matter, what it exposes.

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