MARIJUANA LAWS ARE ENTICING, BUT REMAIN PIPE DREAMS

A lot of commentary in recent months has focused on how California has
gone to pot. I think that may be a somewhat extreme view. But it's
trying -- lord, is it trying.

And by the time all the smoke clears, the state may be in the
marijuana-growing and -selling business, with official tax assessments
on every stem and brownie sold in these parts. Yet, one of the main
reasons the marijuana express is chugging from city halls to the
statehouse is because it seems like an easy solution to grab money
from the green stuff, and right now the state is woefully short on
easy solutions.

Take, for example, the situation in the urban landscape of our East
Bay cousin, Oakland, which this week is trying to get the stamp of
approval from voters to become the nation's first city to set up a
business tax for its cannabis operations. Measure F on the mail-in
ballot, due today, would establish a 1.8 percent tax for the
pot-selling businesses, which supporters believe would go a long way
toward legitimizing marijuana dispensaries as just another link in the
sin-tax chain.

Normally, as much as that term applies to anything in Northern
California, this might be considered a controversial item. But there
is no official campaign against the measure, which means the only
thing stunning about it would be if it does not pass.

Oakland would only bring in about $300,000 annually from its pot clubs
if the initiative is approved, which is relative peanuts for a city
with a $414 million budget. Yet, it does tell you that this whole
lean, green movement is for real, at least outside those counties that
generally adhere to federal law.

Still, as much as pot proponents would have us believe they want to
pay extra for the privilege of sparking legally, it's hard to see how
the business could be regulated so easily, since giant startup
enterprises rarely operate that way. The state Board of Equalization
last week estimated California could take in as much as $1.4 billion
in taxes annually if San Francisco Assemblyman Tom Ammiano's cannabis
legalization bill is passed.

That figure was apparently based on police records and academic
studies of pot intake, hardly a solid basis on which to account for
the amount of cannabis actually used here. San Francisco could not
even account for all of its pot clubs a few years back, and law
enforcement agencies have generally found that the amount of money
taken in through medical marijuana dispensaries is far greater than
imagined.

Or, so to speak, there's a lot of smoke fogging those
mirrors.

That might mean the potential financial bonanza is that much higher
than expected, but it still begs the questions about who will be doing
the counting -- especially now that cities, counties and the state are
all trying to grab whatever money is out there, and a pot stimulus
package is still outside the fantasies of mainstream America.

Other questions abound, like, for instance, what is the federal Drug
Enforcement Agency to do about all the sudden interest in legalizing
marijuana's growth and sales? Just tell pot merchants that they're not
interested and have a nice day?

What about all those private agricultural concerns in the deep forests
of Humboldt County and beyond? Should those wary pot growers just come
out of their redwood closets and announce to the world that, yes,
they've been heavy into the marijuana trade for years and they would
now like to make their presence known so they can start doing
(legitimate) business?

Wouldn't that make them liable for back taxes? You know how picky the
IRS can be about these things.

The president has said that states should fashion their own guidelines
on medical marijuana, which presumably meant that the feds would stop
doing dispensary raids in those places that have voted to make pot
legal for qualified patients. But the U.S. Supreme Court declined to
weigh in on lawsuits trying to make distinctions on the nation's pot
laws.

And while San Francisco, Berkeley and Oakland would no doubt lead the
charge to legality, other towns and counties are trying to put the
clamps on pot expansion by passing new moratoriums, because giving
medical marijuana official blessing doesn't make it easier to control.

As reported here a few weeks back, Los Angeles officials discovered
they have so many pot clubs that they can't keep track of them. There
could be 500, or even 900. So if you can't even count them, how are
you going to monitor them? You think they will all come forward if the
state's tax assessor asks them to start reporting earnings?

This whole legal drug trade thing is a lot more complicated than just
going to a pot club and filling a prescription.