ANYTHING FOR A FIX?

With California's bond rating near junk status, it has turned to a
variety of creative methods to raise money and buy time — paying bills
with IOUs, cutting thousands of state jobs and imposing more work furloughs.

Now, a state legislator has proposed a partial solution that is
attracting attention: Legalize and tax marijuana. State accountants
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 California needs every buck it can get and hearings on
the legislation are expected this fall.

Although possessing and selling marijuana are illegal under federal
law, in 1996, California voters elected to legalize medical marijuana.

Now, The Associated Press reports, three members of the Los Angeles
City Council have proposed closing that city's budget shortfall by
taxing medical-marijuana sales.

And, there is a move afoot for a 2010 ballot proposition that would
repeal all state and local laws criminalizing marijuana.

Considering the high cost of criminalizing marijuana use in California
and the potential government revenues from legalizing and taxing
marijuana, it could well pass.