Legalize It and Don't Bankruptisize It

California, for those of you not paying attention, has a massive budget deficit, something on the order of $20 billion, maybe more, maybe a little less. Either way this is an enormous shortfall and is rooted in the sub-prime lending, the subsequent bursting of the mortgage bubble and immediate deflation of income from all those puffed up home valuations. There's been a cascade effect through the rest of the economy with huge layoffs across almost all sectors including my own, education.

Despite the incredible and overwhelming burden of this debt, there seems to be no movement on the legalization of marijuana movement. I don't get it.

What would legalization do?

- Ease the burden on our way over-stuffed prisons. Some estimates put the population of marijuana related prison sentences at nearly 15% of our prisons. For smoking weed? How much does it cost to put one person in prison for a year?
- Taxation of the #1 cash crop in California. Taxing marijuana would reap huge, huge revenues. I don't know how much precisely but the numbers would be enormous.
- Refocusing efforts on more dangerous drugs like meth, crack and heroin. How much of the so-called "War on Drugs" is focused on dope smokers when they pose almost no real risk to society, certainly compared to meth-heads and crackheads. Legalizing marijuana would allow law enforcement to concentrate on dangerous societal cancers.

It makes no sense to consider bankruptcy before every other avenue has been fully explored. Legalizing marijuana would go a very long ways towards easing the financial burden on our economy, it would ease the burden on our prisons and it would allow law enforcement to focus on much more dangerous drugs.

Marijuana has numerous positive effects for people suffering from glaucoma, treatment for cancer and other illnesses. But, let's be real, smoking pot is a nice mellow way to unwind from a stressful day. It's safer than drinking, just ask any police officer who he'd rather pull over, a pothead or a drunk driver.

At this point, legalization not only makes sense, it may be California's best route out of the red-tinged darkness of the economic morass we are in.

One War We Can End Now

With a sample size of more than 6000 and a response rate far in excess of 50% for legalization (and taxation) of marijuana, it really is time to legalize it as Peter Tosh sang so many years ago.

Now, I'm not a smoker anymore but I have been known to smoke the herb on occasion. While it won't expand your mind, neither does alcohol and marijuana is definitely safer from a health perspective.

Legalization of marijuana makes sense from many standpoints, not the least of which is economically. How many millions of Americans are in prison right now for smoking or selling dope? How much of a burden are they on an already over-taxed prison system? How much money could be instantly saved by releasing them?

And then there are the taxation aspects. How much money is generated by taxing alcohol sales?

Remember what happened when alcohol was prohibited for sale? It gave rise to gangsters and crime and people making gin in their bathtubs and, perhaps worst of all, flapper dresses. Legalizing marijuana removes the criminal interest, it eases the burden on the prison system, it makes good citizens of people that are going to smoke it regardless of the law, a huge amount of money will be generated by taxation and it could be regulated by the FDA (laced pot is a real and scary phenomenon).

It makes sense.

Besides, ask a cop if they want to arrest a drunk person or a stoned person and they will almost certainly tell you that a stoned person is much less hassle, much less likely to do something stupid (like grab for a gun or try to drive off).

Legalize marijuana and let's move those resourced on to more harmful societal problems like meth, crack, heroin and other hardcore and dangerous drugs. Nobody ever died from smoking too much dope, they just fall asleep.

An Alternative to Chopping California Education

Rather than shoot our future by cutting funding for education in California (again) I would prefer to see the Governator do something progressive, thoughtful and inspired.

I don't expect inspiration from him because I tend to think he's a colossal meatheaded douchebag who can't even speak for himself, he has to quote his lame movie lines.

But I can still hope.

Anyway, my idea is the sin tax. Taxing non-essential "sin" items like alcohol and cigarettes. Raising the cost of these items actually does several things. One, it will generate an enormous amount of revenue. Two, it will encourage some to quit smoking. Three, those smokers who quit will be healthier over the long run and will reduce the load on the healthcare system proportionately.

Is a sin tax the perfect solution? No, not at all. But we don't live in a perfect world, we live in reality where something's got to give or the whole shithouse is going to come down on us. And shorting education is about the worst solution I can think of (save perhaps closing all the prisons and letting the convicts run free).

And why not other progressive ideas? Like legalizing marijuana and taxing it? There's no doubt that a substantial percentage of Californians smoke pot regularly. It aids an untaxed black market economy that could represent a rather large revenue stream. Also, decriminalizing pot would ease an enormous and unnecessary load on our prison system since putting a dope smoker in prison will likely just convert him from a "lipstick" crook into a full-on thug via the penal education system.

I don't have any idea how the whole thing could shake out but I do know that taxing sin items has multiple positive aspects to it (and some negatives to be sure). Far more positive than shorting education and producing less qualified, less educated and less educatible population which will be more likely to resort to criminal lifestyles as a means of survival.

Tax optional sin items, legalize and tax marijuana for personal use, do not short education, do not close national parks to save piddling amounts of money and actually lead by example instead of relying on pathetic, short sighted and overly optimistic lottery earnings to save us.

Or hey, here's another idea. Make a dollar lottery ticket cost a buck ten and put that extra ten cents towards the shortfall.