GREAT GREEN HOPE

You know California is in trouble when we start looking to stoners to
save us from economic collapse, or at least the stoner-friendly
initiative, "The Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010,"
which will be on the state ballot in November. The Act will, once and
for all, end the mindless, expensive legal and political circle jerk
over illicit marijuana that has strained California for years. Like
antivenin for snake poison, one of the biggest battles in Nixon's War
on Drugs will finally be won by the enemy itself -- a drug.

Currently, California's deficit hovers around $20 billion, it costs
the state about $50,000 a year to incarcerate one individual. The
public school system is hemorrhaging money to the point that Mark
Yudof is asking the public for money that the government won't (and
can't) give. We have more prisoners than public college students.
Thanks to California's three strikes law and Proposition 36,
California spends millions pointlessly enforcing the marijuana ban.

From the initiative: "According to surveys, roughly 100 million
Americans (around one-third of the country's population) acknowledge
that they have used cannabis, 15 million of those Americans having
consumed cannabis in the last month. Cannabis consumption is simply a
fact of life for a large percentage of Americans." The initiative
goes on to point out that unlike cigarettes, cannabis does not create
a physical addiction, does not have a lasting toxic effect on the
body and, unlike alcohol, does not make its users violent. As with
moonshine alcohol in the 1920s and the intense cigarette marketing of
the 1950s (see Don Draper from "Mad Men"), the media creates the hype
and stigma that makes a five-pointed leaf simultaneously the symbol
of in-your-face rebellion and the collapse of morals and
civilization. That doesn't have to be the case.

In fact, some medical marijuana dispensary owners and cannabis
cultivators are against the initiative because of what its
regulations will do to their businesses. "The growers are going to
get a little over $1,000 and it costs $1,000 to make a pound," says
Stephen Gaspara, who grows medical marijuana in a warehouse in Shasta
County. "It's not going to work out. I've crunched the numbers."

According to him, legalization will cut in half the price of prime
California cannabis, which is currently about $2,400 per pound. The
State Legislature is also considering taxing cannabis retailers $50
per ounce of cannabis sold, which it may or may not happen
considering that the bill also intends to rid the streets of shady
black market pot dealers (who sell it considerably cheaper). Still,
assuming the Legislature does not implement this tax, this bill does
stand to put medical marijuana sellers out of business.

Is that a bad thing? Not necessarily. Patients will still be able to
get their marijuana and the need for trifling and extremely
easy-to-get (six-month free trials? Seriously?) medical marijuana
cards will go away. The bill's regulations insist that marijuana be
sold only to people 21 years and older and adheres to a lot of laws
concerning cigarette smoking (ex. no smoking in public areas, on
public school grounds, allowing minors to smoke). Given a few months,
marijuana may be sold in smoke shops and 7-11's around the state in
same way top-shelf imported liquor sells in bars. Lucrative cannabis
lounges might open up, like the hookah lounges and oxygen bars before
them. Just like that, the stigma are removed. Street dealers will no
longer be able to take advantage of the ban. Not that they do,
anyway. The high rate of use despite the recession suggests that even
medical marijuana cards are just a formality for most users.

Some fear that legalization will open the door for hordes of pot
heads collectively shirking responsibility by smoking everyday and
abandoning the cares and demands of their lives. To this, I respond:
alcoholics. Alcoholics are by far the minority among
alcohol-drinkers. Alcoholics, like pot heads, shirk their
responsibilities and abuse their drug constantly, but unlike pot
heads, they get violent, abuse their family members, suffer from
long-term brain damage, and often find themselves in Alcoholics
Anonymous. Yet, alcohol is still legal and the world is still intact.
In fact, the fears surrounding marijuana legalization can draw
parallels from a vast range of legal and potentially dangerous social
phenomena: cars, planes, glue, power tools, BDSM, guns, etc.

Economically, California's current $14 billion annual marijuana crop,
if legalized, could bring in upwards of $1.4 billion in revenue, or
about 5 percent of our state deficit. It would ease the strain on
state prisons and jails, which would save the state the millions of
dollars it could be using to fund education, job growth and public works.

Rather than chasing down harmless marijuana users and possessors,
police forces will be able to (and be held responsible for) hunting
down society's real menaces. Though, more than anything,
legalization, once the dust settles, will be one less trifling,
stupid issue pitting Republicans against Democrats.

So to those still staunchly against cannabis legalization in
California, I can only wonder what you're smoking.