Take a trip to the Haight on any day of the week, pick a corner and stand there. Inside half an hour you'll hear, "sticky green bud," a whispered offer in your ear. After that, head to Dolores Park. Grab a patch of grass and wait. Within 15 minutes you'll smell the scent of marijuana fill the Mission air. The Bay Area is saturated with pot, as many local cities have deprioritized marijuna arrests to the very least important police issue. With marijuna so widely available to any one with cash and a touch of resourcefulness, will people buy taxed marijuana from licensed retailers in the state of California, to the tune $50 dollars plus cost per ounce, possibly risking having their identities documented at the time of sale?
They just might have that opportunity if
California assemblyman Tom Ammiano of San Francisco's bill to decriminalize and tax marijana in the state comes to fruition. He's filing the proposal before Friday's deadline:
State Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, introduced legislation
Monday to legalize and tax marijuana in the state of California.
AB 390 would require that all sales of marijuana be made by licensed sellers and that sales be taxed $50 per ounce.
It would also forbid sales to anyone under 21.
"With the state in the midst of an historic economic crisis, the move
towards regulating and taxing marijuana is simply common sense,"
Ammiano said at a morning news conference at the state building on
Golden Gate Avenue in San Francisco.
Ammiano said the law, if passed, could generate more than $1.3 billion in much-needed revenue for the state.
"California has the opportunity to be the first state in the nation to
enact a smart, responsible public policy for the control and regulation
of marijuana," he said.
One of the primary reasons for this legislation is making money for the state of California. But will marijuana users really go to the state for their stash?
Jim Gray, retired California Supreme Court justice is in favor of the move, and admits in the CBS5.com video that "it is easier for kids to get marijuana than a 6-pack of beer." The former justice isn't wrong, but doesn't that lend some credence to the idea that adults might not want to buy from the state if they can get it easier and more cheaply from alternative means? Even if one doesn't want to buy pot off the black market, any one with a good excuse and 200 bucks can get a pot club card and pay, without a $50 per ounce tax, for marijuana without risk of harm.
Or is it possible that people who believe strongly in decriminalizing marijuana (very likely a goodly number of pot smokers) will pay up for "the greater good"? Despite being a low priority crime in the Bay Area, that isn't the case throughout California. Perhaps less towns less tolerant of pot will be filled with people who wish to no longer smoke in the closet.
But, as Brock at SFist notes (see his post
Media Circus at Ammiano 'Legalize Pot' Press Conference this AM at State Building), marijuana is still highly illegal under federal law. Puffer parents are getting their heads bashed in over marijuana possesssion in less liberal states, and California is still constantly battling the feds on its lax pot laws. How much money is the state going to spend fighting the federal government on this? Likley a large sum.
And what's the word here? "Decriminalization" or "legalization"? Or both? CBS 5 reporter Anna Duckworth states in her piece that Ammiano seeks to both decriminalize and legalize the drug. Are those two seperate things? It may just be that "decriminalization" keeps popping up because it sounds much less radical.
They often say that what starts on the West Coast often rolls East. With a new administration is Washington, this could be the first small step in an inevitable evolution of marijuana drug laws. Or is this thing dead in the water? What about those employed in the state arresting, defending, wardening and rehabilitating marijuana drug offenders? Won't a large number involved in the industries surrounding drug enforcement suffer job losses? So much of what is ingrained would be shifted and uprooted.
What do you think, dear reader? Does this legislation have legs? Could California possibly legalize marijuana?
[Photo by zappowzang]
