kingpin007
Bluelighter
High Finance
Broadcast: 15/06/2010
Reporter: Eric Campbell
Let’s call it Califloracation.
Or supplier-side economics.
Groaning under the crushing weight of a multi-billion dollar deficit, California is dreaming up novel ways of paying its bills. And like a slacker’s cry in a Judd Apatow stoner film or a punch line in Cheech and Chong sketch - a bright idea: What about drugs!
Seriously.
An authorised cannabis trade already operates in California. A medical-use system which has grown and grown into a defacto mainstream trade.
"I’d be dead without it. I don’t get high from cannabis at all. It’s really boring.
I really honestly don’t like using it. I do it because I have to." ANGEL RAICH Pain sufferer, cannabis user
But later this year Californians will vote on a proposition to legalise marijuana altogether - enabling anyone over 21 to possess an ounce of the drug and grow it themselves. The payoff: the state get its hands on urgently needed tax revenue.
"Maybe two or three billion for the State budget. Now that’s not going to resolve a 20 billion dollar deficit but it would go a long way towards many things people are seeing being pared down." TOM AMMIANO Democrat legislator
Reporter Eric Campbell goes up country to meet a man we’ll call – with apologies to the incumbent Governor – The Germinator. Matt Cohen is one of the country’s premium cannabis horticulturalists with a pristine organic seed bank.
‘La Confidential, Casey Jones, Blue Cheese …’ Matt reads a seemingly endless list of varieties with counter-culture names certain to change if and when California choose to Legalise It.
The Cannabusiness has its supporters but naturally there are detractors.
"It’s a major cause of substance dependence in the United State. It’s a leading cause of going into treatment in the United States. It’s a leading cause of highway fatalities that rivals alcohol in the United States. It’s a very serious health problem - and especially I would say, for youth." DR ROBERT DU PONT Head of Drug Policy (Ford/Reagan)
http://www.abc.net.au/foreign/content/2010/s2923813.htm
Its been talked about over and over but a documentary called The Union looks at the industry and the potential money to be made, worth checking out (Its at JB Hi Fi but you can also find it online 
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