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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsCalifornia Attorney General: Legalizing Marijuana Would Save Hundreds Of Millions Of Dollars A Year
If a proposed ballot measure succeeds, California may become the third state to legalize marijuana for recreational purposes. By the states estimate, legalization would save the state hundreds of millions of dollars each year and generate about the same amount in new tax revenue.
Attorney General Kamala Harris office released a summary of the proposed ballot measure on Christmas Eve, breaking down the costs incurred by law enforcement, court proceedings, and prison maintenance. The Legislative Analyst and Director of Finance found that legalization would result in reduced costs in the low hundreds of millions of dollars annually to state and local governments related to enforcing certain marijuana-related offenses, handling the related criminal cases in the court system, and incarcerating and supervising certain marijuana offenders.
Newly legalized production and sale of marijuana would also rake in net additional tax revenues in the low hundreds of millions of dollars annually.
These fiscal benefits would undoubtedly be a boon to California, which has struggled with a massive deficit, a flailing public school system, and an overcrowded prison crisis. Drug offenders make up 31 percent of inmates in the state, and each inmate costs taxpayers about $47,000 per year.
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http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/12/29/3106761/california-marijuana-legalization-fiscal-benefits/
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Our illustrious County Board of Supervisors just voted to ban outdoor cultivation for the unincorporated areas. That's to match the ban in the rest of the city. This would, hopefully, settle all that.
JRLeft
(7,010 posts)ProSense
(116,464 posts)Le Taz Hot
(22,271 posts)You and I actual agree on something.
Kamala Harris, she SO needs to be California's next governor. After that, the White House.
"Kamala Harris, she SO needs to be California's next governor. After that, the White House."
...straight to the WH.
Oh, alright!
Bennyboy
(10,440 posts)The lawsuits will be so expensive.
Especially if it is legalized through a proposition. There is no chance whatsoever that the voters can handle something this complex. No chance that a proposition that covers every aspect of the cannabis industry could even be conceived, much less brought before the voters. And that means lawsuits, letting the courts decide all of the stuff that is going to come up, outside of the propositions language.
And that means lawyers on both sides. Judges, billable hours, for a about ten million things.
Look at the CO initiative. That law is so vague that almost every aspect of the industry is going to go to court, many many many times before it is all cleared up.
This is probably the most complex thing we care facing right now. There are so many aspects an sub aspects going on with this and now the only way to rectify them is to go to court.
Just ten things that are never covered in any proposition; (and will need to be settled in court which will cost the taxpayers for decades)
exactly how is it to be sold retail? in store fronts? At Football games like Liquor? At the 7-11 or in a specialty shop?
Edibles, where can you sell them? Can I sell them at legally Red Rocks and why not?
extracts, how are they made, safety,
product safety we require that of everything right?
product labeling, dosages, % content
large grower versus the backyard grower that still makes 20K selling weed. Or the guy who grows five plants, but they piss off his neighbor.
Zoning
driving (actual impairment, tested and verified)
Public smoking, Apartments> Condos? restaurants/ bars?
Public vaporizing?
What about tasting rooms?
Pot tourism? (around here it is HUGE)
Taxes is intensely complicated. Do you put trimmers on the payroll? How are you going to get a grower, one who has been a criminal all of their live, to pay taxes? Or do books? And how do you even account for it all? Some us the trim some don't. Some give it away and it gets used by someone else for another product.
I know my share of growers and I know NONE of them will pay taxes voluntarily. The only way they will pay taxes is how it happened after Prohibition, revenuers going through the woods finding grows and slapping tax tags on them.
And with that you will have to step up enforcement of public lands grows, if you are going to be taxed, then you need to protect the market by stopping tax free weed. And that means a bigger budget for the weed crusaders, only this time they will be able to focus only on Public lands.
"It will actually cost CA way more than it takes in....The lawsuits will be so expensive...Look at the CO initiative. That law is so vague that almost every aspect of the industry is going to go to court, many many many times before it is all cleared up. "
...envision any legalization of weed that wouldn't face endless court challenges? It seems you outlined all the reasons why legalizing it will be complicated and might not work.
Bennyboy
(10,440 posts)I like the way it works now except for the illegality. I like that I deal with a guy who grows, it or I grow it or whatever. Within ten years of legalization,almost everyone now who makes their living in cannabis will no longer be able to do that.
Trimmers will be replaced by machines (already are for a ton of growers).
Multi acre farms will put all but the best botique growers out of business.
the guy you get your pot from? he will be gone, replaced by the usual retail system.
The guy who sells edibles at Phish shows? GONE replaced by some corporation that sells edibles like they do beer.
Not to mention that the growers will need to be regulated just like corn and ll everything else is. Water rights, all of that, none of that is nay of the bills.
then exactly what do you do to pot prisoners? Kick em all, stop their probation> Felonies? Sales?