THE GRASS IS STARTING TO LOOK GREENER

The state of California desperately needs cash. With tax increases
off the table and its bond rating near junk statue, it has turned to
a variety of creative methods to raise money and buy time -- paying
state contractors, and maybe soon its own workforce, with IOUs;
borrowing from city and county governments and the schools; cutting
2,000 more state jobs on top of the 4,600 already laid off.

A state legislator has proposed a partial solution that is attracting
attention -- legalize and tax marijuana. The state government's green
eyeshades 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 this is a state that needs every buck it can get and
hearings on the legislation are expected this fall.

There is the small matter of the growing, possessing and selling
marijuana being illegal under federal law, but in 1996 California
voters elected to legalize medical marijuana and there is a discreet
but open trade in the stuff despite periodic federal crackdowns. The
Associated Press reports that there is a move afoot for a 2010
referendum measure that repeal all state and local laws criminalizing
marijuana.

And, the AP also reports, three members of the Los Angeles City
Council have proposed closing that city's budget shortfall by taxing
medical marijuana sales.

Changing social mores and verification of its medical efficacy may
help, but if marijuana is ever truly legalized it likely will be
because our politicians need the money.