Look For The Union Label

When you are buying.... POT.

Haute Stoner Cuisine

This is kind of funny.

“There has been an entire strata of restaurants created by chefs to feed other chefs,” Mr. Bourdain said. “These are restaurants created specially for the tastes of the slightly stoned, slightly drunk chef after work.”

A video of some chefs in action.

If The People Lead The Politicians Will Follow

Tim Rutton in the LA Times.

The real reason the City Council is having such a hellish time coming to grips with this issue is that this is one of those areas where social attitudes and thinking simply have moved beyond conventional legal thinking or, for that matter, the permissible language of politics. Medical marijuana was, from the start, a back door to legalization, and now it's swung wide open.

Legalize It

It seems California will have a vote on legalizing marijuana.

Advocates of legalizing marijuana say they've collected more than enough signatures to have California voters decide next year whether to tax and regulate the drug.

The signatures in support of the Tax and Regulate Initiative, which would give local governments the authority to tax and regulate the sale of marijuana, will be submitted to state election officials early next year for verification.

Delaying the submission of signatures ensures the measure would be on the November 2010 ballot, said Richard Lee, the measure's chief supporter.

The petition drive collected more than 680,000 signatures in just two months, less than half the time allowed for such a drive, said Lee, who owns Oaksterdam University and Coffeeshop Blue Sky, two Oakland-based marijuana businesses.

Failure!

The war on drugs is a failure. How long can we keep this conservative failure going? We can no longer afford prohibition. An op/ed in the NYT.

The problem is becoming so dramatic that elder statesmen, senior law enforcement officers, intellectuals and philanthropists the world over are speaking out loud and clear: The “War on Drugs” is a disastrous policy that achieves none of its aims and inflicts huge damage on global security and governance wherever it is prosecuted.

They argue that state regulation of the drug market would reduce the health and social risks posed by narcotics and generate huge tax revenues, which could be hypothecated to absorb any costs. At the moment, the vast profits from the illegal drug trade go into the pockets of organized crime syndicates and terrorist groups.

Wow!

Almost a million Americans were arrested for marijuana last year. That is almost a third of 1%of Americans were arrested for marijuana.

Police arrested 847,864 persons for marijuana violations in 2008, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's annual Uniform Crime Report, released today. The total marks a three percent decrease in marijuana arrests from 2007, when law enforcement arrested a record 872,721 Americans for cannabis-related violations, but still remains the second highest tally of annual arrests ever reported.

Marijuana arrests now comprise one-half (49.8 percent) of all drug arrests reported in the United States.

Amazing. What a waste of time and money.

History Of Weed

Kind of fun.

52%

The percentage of Americans that think Marijuana should be legal.

3,937 voters were asked: “Scarce law enforcement and prison resources, a desire to neutralize drug cartels and the need for new sources of revenue have resurrected the topic of legalizing marijuana. Proponents say it makes sense to tax and regulate the drug while opponents say that legalization would lead marijuana users to use other illegal drugs. Would you favor or oppose the government’s effort to legalize marijuana?”

52 percent came out in favor, with 37 percent against. The poll was commissioned by the conservative-leaning O’Leary report.

Via Blue Girl. I think it is time to end the prohibition.

Cut Crime In Half!

Legalize marijuana. From Joe Klein's article in Time magazine.

But there are big issues here, issues of economy and simple justice, especially on the sentencing side. As Webb pointed out in a cover story in Parade magazine, the U.S. is, by far, the most "criminal" country in the world, with 5% of the world's population and 25% of its prisoners. We spend $68 billion per year on corrections, and one-third of those being corrected are serving time for nonviolent drug crimes. We spend about $150 billion on policing and courts, and 47.5% of all arrests are marijuana-related. That is an awful lot of money, most of it nonfederal, that could be spent on better schools or infrastructure — or simply returned to the public.

Just How Much?

Does the war on drugs cost? I have been wondering. Reading Libby Spencer's blog I find this quote from Jack Cafferty.

What do you suppose the total price tag is for this failed war on drugs? One senior Harvard economist estimates we spend $44 billion a year fighting the war on drugs. He says if they were legal, governments would realize about $33 billion a year in tax revenue. Net swing of $77 billion. Could we use that money today for something else? You bet your ass we could. Plus the cartels would be out of business. Instantly. Goodbye crime and violence.

People are using illegal drugs the war does not work.

Legalize It

Those crazy Californians are thinking about legalizing recreational marijuana.

Could marijuana be the answer to the economic misery facing California? Democratic State Assembly member Tom Ammiano thinks so. Ammiano introduced legislation last month that would legalize pot and allow the state to regulate and tax its sale - a move that could mean billions for the cash-strapped state. Pot is, after all, California's biggest cash crop, responsible for $14 billion in annual sales, dwarfing the state's second largest agricultural commodity - milk and cream - which brings in $7.3 billion annually, according to the most recent USDA statistics. The state's tax collectors estimate the bill would bring in about $1.3 billion in much-needed revenue a year, offsetting some of the billions in service cuts and spending reductions outlined in the recently approved state budget.

Also, New Jersey is allowing a medical marijuana bill to move forward, with provisions for growing and selling. Minnesota is also considering a bill that would allow the use and growing of medical marijuana but no sales.

Legalize It!

the California legislature is going to consider legalizing marijuana for recreational use.

Reporting from Sacramento -- Could Cannabis sativa be a salvation for California's fiscal misfortunes? Can the state get a better budget grip by taxing what some folks toke?

An assemblyman from San Francisco announced legislation Monday to do just that: make California the first state in the nation to tax and regulate recreational marijuana in the same manner as alcohol.
Buoyed by the widely held belief that cannabis is California's biggest cash crop, Assemblyman Tom Ammiano contends it is time to reap some state revenue from that harvest while putting a damper on drug use by teens, cutting police costs and even helping Mother Nature.

"I know the jokes are going to be coming, but this is not a frivolous issue," said Ammiano, a Democrat elected in November after more than a dozen years as a San Francisco supervisor. "California always takes the lead -- on gay marriage, the sanctuary movement, medical marijuana."
Ammiano's measure, AB 390, would essentially replicate the regulatory structure used for beer, wine and hard liquor, with taxed sales barred to anyone under 21.

He said it would actually boost public safety, keeping law enforcement focused on more serious crimes while keeping marijuana away from teenagers who can readily purchase black-market pot from peers.

The natural world would benefit, too, from the uprooting of environmentally destructive backcountry pot plantations that denude fragile ecosystems, Ammiano said.

But the biggest boon might be to the bottom line. By some estimates, California's pot crop is a $14-billion industry, putting it above vegetables ($5.7 billion) and grapes ($2.6 billion). If so, that could mean upward of $1 billion in tax revenue for the state each year.

14 states have a medical marijuana bill or have decriminalized small amounts of marijuana. However, California is the only state that permits the growing and sales of medical marijuana. If California starts to collect a large amount of tax, other states will be interested. Prohibition of alcohol was ended during the great depression because the nation could no longer afford to enforce those laws. Perhaps this depression will end the prohibition of alcohol.

Stimulus

Not a new idea, but a good idea. Legalize and tax marijuana.

Okay, we have the numbers. C=20,000,000 oz a month. P(i)=$160. P(l)=$60. Which means S=$2 billion dollars a month.

And tax revenue is even easier. If we take my proposed $10 per ounce tax for both federal and local, this would raise $2,500,000,000 a year for the national treasury and the same for the state treasuries, without including sales or income taxes, tariffs, license fees, etc. Not enough to balance the budget, but still 'real money.'

Of course my example is unrealistic in one way. Federal legalization is possible, and long overdue. I would not be surprised to see it as soon as this summer. But this would leave state options, and, at first, many states would not legalize it. And while it is likely that there would be some drop in prices in these states because dealers would be in competition with legal sellers in neighboring states, these states would not get the full stimulus effect or any tax revenue at all.

I think Prup is being way optimistic when he says marijuana will be legal in the summer.

Micheal Phelps

phelps_burrito, originally uploaded by Radical_Russ.

Hey he is entitled to a smoke now and again. Whoever took the picture was an ass.

Cops Bust Christmas Tree Grow In War On Christmas

OK, there is not really a war on Christmas but with losers like Bill O'reilly screaming about it I can not resist the headline.

Police in Odessa Texas, need to find something else to do. The busted a house with two small Christmas trees under grow lights.

KopBusters rented a house in Odessa, Texas and began growing two small Christmas trees under a grow light similar to those used for growing marijuana. When faced with a suspected marijuana grow, the police usually use illegal FLIR cameras and/or lie on the search warrant affidavit claiming they have probable cause to raid the house. Instead of conducting a proper investigation which usually leads to no probable cause, the Kops lie on the affidavit claiming a confidential informant saw the plants and/or the police could smell marijuana coming from the suspected house.

The trap was set and less than 24 hours later, the Odessa narcotics unit raided the house only to find KopBuster’s attorney waiting under a system of complex gadgetry and spy cameras that streamed online to the KopBuster’s secret mobile office nearby.

Now how do you get a search warrant if there is nothing illegal going on? It is illegal to use the FLIR imaging. No one saw marijuana being grown or smelled it as it was not there. Do you really want your tax dollars spent on this? Oh, and the local prosecutor is trying to find some law the group kopbusters broke. What an ass.
A local TV stations coverage.

Video of raid here.
Via Talk Left.

End Prohibition

Friday marked the 75th anniversary of the end of the prohibition of alcohol. And with it the violence created by the gangs that sold the drug alcohol. A group called Law Enforcement Against Prohibition is calling for legalization of illegal drugs.

Wouldn't legalizing drugs create new users? Not necessarily. LEAP wants drugs to be regulated like alcohol and cigarettes. Regulations are why it's harder to buy alcohol or cigarettes in many schoolyards than drugs. By regulating the purity and strength of drugs, they become less deadly.

Isn't drug addiction a scourge that tears families apart? Yes, it is, and so are arrests and incarceration and criminal records for kids caught smoking pot behind the bleachers. There are 2.1 million people in federal, state and local prisons, 1.7 million of them for non-violent drug offenses.

Removing the stigma of drug use lets addicts come out into the open for treatment. We have treatments for alcoholism, but we don't ban alcohol.

In addition to ending much of the violence it will create new jobs and tax revenue for the municipalities that decide to legalize.

Harvard economist Jeffrey Miron estimates that legalizing drugs would save federal, state and local governments $44 billion in enforcement costs. Governments could collect another $33 billion in revenues were they to tax drugs as heavily as alcohol and tobacco.

It is the only real way to deal with a policy that has not worked for the last 80 plus years.

Link via Avedon.

Schools Or Prisons?

The politicians chose for you. They chose prisons. Juan Cole has an excellent post on the subject.

A big drain on state budgets is the penitentiary system. In just the decade 1980 to 1990, the prison and jail population in the US doubled. Since 1980, the prison population has quadrupled. By the end of 2006, over 2 million persons were in prison and another 5 million were on probation or on parole.

I remember reading in the Ann Arbor News in 1988 about a big debate at the statehouse in Lansing over funding for prisons versus funding for universities. The prisons won.

In these same nearly four decades, there have been substantial declines in violent crimes and crimes against property in the US. The vastly increased prison population was produced by unreasonably long prison sentences for non-violent crime, by ridiculous 3-strikes-and-you-are-out life sentences and by the completely failed 'war on drugs' and by mandatory sentencing guidelines imposed by legislatures on judges in drug cases. Half of prisoners in state prisons did not commit a violent crime, and 20% are drug offenders.[...]
The states had to put their money into prosecuting, trying, imprisoning and then supporting to the tune of like $20,000 a year a bunch of . . . potheads.

The whole thing is worth a read. Some key points, alcohol causes more problems than marijuana yet nobody is talking about alcohol prohibition. Marijuana should be taxed and regulated. Some of the tax money for treatment programs for people that can not handle marijuana. I think the alcohol industry should have a similar tax for people that can not handle alcohol.

Michigan Legalizes Medical Marijuana

It should help the economy.

For the first time ever, the state Department of Community Health is working out a process to permit some seriously ill people and their caregivers to possess and grow marijuana. The move is required by the medical marijuana initiative that Michigan voters approved last month.

The law, which won a majority of voters in every county of the state, takes effect on Thursday. The state has until April 4 to establish the rules for the program. The Department of Community Health will issue draft rules this month, and a public hearing is expected in January.

Both the Department of Community Health and the newly formed nonprofit Michigan Medical Marijuana Association are planning education drives to help smooth the transition into state licensing of medicinal marijuana users.

In California medical marijuana is estimated to be a 100 million to 2 billion dollar industry. That number is for the legal marijuana that gets taxed. Imagine if California got just sales tax on the estimated 22 billion dollar illegal sales.

No Mr Big

No mater how much they spend, the growing will continue.

The U.S. Forest Service pulled twice as many marijuana plants from the San Bernardino National Forest this year compared to 2007 because it had twice as much money, a special agent in charge of eradicating marijuana said.

Special Agent in Charge Ron Pugh, who oversees law enforcement in California forests for the U.S. Forest Service, said his targets are the chiefs of the drug organizations.

He says arresting them is the best way to decrease the amount of marijuana planted. Finding fewer plants next year would be a good measure of success, Pugh said.

"We want to get to the Mr. Big who is profiting from this," Pugh said. "Until we get to that we are just chasing the farmers."

They are not going to catch the guy who bank rolls the operation. The farmers as Pugh calls them will not tell if they know. And most likely they do not. It would be a death penalty for them. If you want to stop them from growing on public land legalize it. Tax it. Regulate it. Prohibition has not worked for the last 70 plus years. The time has come to change this failed policy.

For Hollis

Not that he reads my blog. Chewing gum after colon surgery helps you go.

They found patients who chewed gum took an average of 1.1 fewer days to have a bowel movement compared with non-chewers.

Gum chewing is thought to act as a kind of "sham feeding," stimulating nerves in the digestive system, triggering the release of gastrointestinal hormones and increasing the production of saliva and secretions from the pancreas.

Via Clusterflock.