“An Oakland, Calif., based group is trying to gather the 434,000 signatures necessary to put the question of marijuana legalization before state voters on the 2010 ballot.
Under the Tax, Regulate and Control Cannabis Act of 2010, adults over age 21 would be allowed to legally possess up to an ounce of marijuana, and could grow the drug for personal use on plots of land up to 25 square feet. The proposed ballot measure was filed with the state Attorney General's office this week. Legalization advocates point to past successes with medical marijuana in California and a Field Poll that found that 56 percent of state voters support the legalization and taxation of marijuana. "It's one more pretty amazing element in the momentum toward ending statewide prohibition," said Stephen Gutwillig, California director of the Drug Policy Alliance. If it makes the ballot and is approved by voters, the measure would repeal all state and local marijuana laws and clear marijuana offenses from the records of all past offenders.”
While being well aware that this is a major step towards the eventual goal of wholly legal marijuana, that eventual goal has to be kept firmly in mind, and public relations should not be confused with reality. Already, in Los Angeles, we have medical marijuana emerging as essentially a neat legal loophole for the affluence middle classic dope smoker – the yuppie pothead, if you like – who can kick back a hundred bucks to a doctor for a cannabis card and then pay $120 bucks for a quarter of purple kush or Skywalker OG. The almost 200 hundred dope stores that have sprung up in LA County are a clear testimony to the profits levels in the business. And of course the profits are amazing because quasi-legal dope is being sold at outlaw prices even though the risk factor – the reason we paid the big bucks during prohibition – has been eliminated. Also eliminated – or at least seriously threatened – is the community benefit of illegal dope in that distribution and sale previously supported literally hundreds of people. Medical marijuana stores would appear to be making a fortune for a lucky few, but hardly spreading the wealth. We also have the nebulous, beam-me-up-Scotty, anomaly of dope that is illegal during its mass cultivation, harvesting, and distribution, but magically becomes legal once it is safely inside the pot store.
The Tax, Regulate and Control Cannabis Act of 2010 perpetuates and extends the same nonsensical legal anomaly. The ounce that you’re holding will be legal, but the kilo it came in remains outside the law. Ounce good/kilo evil simply cannot stand. If marijuana is to be legal, it has to be legal across the board, taxed, regulated, and subject to a considerable reduction in consumer prices because no one has to duck the narcs any more and no ones goes to jail. Half measures have to be recognized as merely temporary or else we go back to an outlaw pot economy in which everyone’s ass was up for grabs.
The secret word is Bud
Under the Tax, Regulate and Control Cannabis Act of 2010, adults over age 21 would be allowed to legally possess up to an ounce of marijuana, and could grow the drug for personal use on plots of land up to 25 square feet. The proposed ballot measure was filed with the state Attorney General's office this week. Legalization advocates point to past successes with medical marijuana in California and a Field Poll that found that 56 percent of state voters support the legalization and taxation of marijuana. "It's one more pretty amazing element in the momentum toward ending statewide prohibition," said Stephen Gutwillig, California director of the Drug Policy Alliance. If it makes the ballot and is approved by voters, the measure would repeal all state and local marijuana laws and clear marijuana offenses from the records of all past offenders.”
While being well aware that this is a major step towards the eventual goal of wholly legal marijuana, that eventual goal has to be kept firmly in mind, and public relations should not be confused with reality. Already, in Los Angeles, we have medical marijuana emerging as essentially a neat legal loophole for the affluence middle classic dope smoker – the yuppie pothead, if you like – who can kick back a hundred bucks to a doctor for a cannabis card and then pay $120 bucks for a quarter of purple kush or Skywalker OG. The almost 200 hundred dope stores that have sprung up in LA County are a clear testimony to the profits levels in the business. And of course the profits are amazing because quasi-legal dope is being sold at outlaw prices even though the risk factor – the reason we paid the big bucks during prohibition – has been eliminated. Also eliminated – or at least seriously threatened – is the community benefit of illegal dope in that distribution and sale previously supported literally hundreds of people. Medical marijuana stores would appear to be making a fortune for a lucky few, but hardly spreading the wealth. We also have the nebulous, beam-me-up-Scotty, anomaly of dope that is illegal during its mass cultivation, harvesting, and distribution, but magically becomes legal once it is safely inside the pot store.
The Tax, Regulate and Control Cannabis Act of 2010 perpetuates and extends the same nonsensical legal anomaly. The ounce that you’re holding will be legal, but the kilo it came in remains outside the law. Ounce good/kilo evil simply cannot stand. If marijuana is to be legal, it has to be legal across the board, taxed, regulated, and subject to a considerable reduction in consumer prices because no one has to duck the narcs any more and no ones goes to jail. Half measures have to be recognized as merely temporary or else we go back to an outlaw pot economy in which everyone’s ass was up for grabs.
The secret word is Bud
.JPG)
1 comment:
Strange that the price of the gram-scale hasn't been hit by inflation since I was 12... same price, same quantities & qualities... can't say the same for much else.
I suppose there ought to be an economic study of the situation so governance can get it right & achieve some level of applied stability for the rest of the business world.
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