Marijuana Dealers Offer Schwarzenegger One Billion Dollars

As California faces a $1 billion budget shortfall, the marijuana industry offers a commonsense solution to the state's fiscal problems:

August 6 -- A coalition of California marijuana growers and dealers has offered Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger one billion dollars to solve the current state budget crisis. The group, calling itself Let Us Pay Taxes makes the offer through its web site LetUsPayTaxes.com. The offer comes at a time when the California legislature is deadlocked on a new budget and California has stopped issuing checks for vitally needed social services. Legislators are currently arguing over which programs will be cut in order to balance the budget. [link]

This effort is the brainchild of drug policy expert/activist Cliff Shaffer, who has hit the nail square on its head. The failure of prohibitionists to grasp the inherent economic lunacy of the drug war has always been particularly startling to me. I grudgingly accept that drug war supporters feel no sympathy for the victims of harsh laws, and even that they clumsily attribute the harmful effects of prohibition to the drugs themselves. Yet, tragic and irrational as these beliefs may be, they do not explain the willingness of government to cast aside billions in taxable commerce.

Marijuana is, after all, the #1 cash crop in the nation. This fact cleanly illustrates the failure of prohibition, while vividly depicting the massive windfall available to any state with the wisdom to pursue regulation. And all this is to say nothing of the incalculable value of discontinuing our current marijuana policy, which is as wasteful and ineffective as can be.

Gov. Schwarzenegger is unlikely to be impressed with this offer, unfortunately, having vetoed California's hemp bill over concerns regarding conflict with federal law. Yet, as Shaffer points out, there is truly nothing the DEA can do to prevent state level regulation of marijuana. The vastly smaller medical marijuana industry has already overwhelmed the agency's enforcement capacity. Ongoing DEA raids are merely a face-saving gesture, designed to confuse legislators in prospective medical marijuana states. The full-scale regulation of the marijuana economy in any state would reveal DEA's genuine impotence, permanently burying the myth that conflict with federal law ensures some sort of brutal showdown.

Having failed to get our point across in so many ways, it's about time we start offering people a billion dollars.

Marijuana Dealers Offer Schwarzenegger One Billion Dollars
Stop the drug war
August 8, 2007
Link

Thanks for posting this. A friend mentioned it to me and I couldn't find this article.

I hope this is a realistic tax gain for the gov, and that the news gets hold this or its otherwise publicized to the point the governator has to respond.

awesome

One inaccuracy I wanted to address that I am quite sure of is the fact that tobacco is the # 1 cash crop in the US not marijuana. Argument still makes sense though.

No, cannabis actually is the #1 cash crop, it was in the news not too long ago.

^I think he's right

edit : This was the first link when I typed "#1 cash crop" in google. Make what you will of that.....

haha that is bad ass.

It is also the #1 crop in Canada. It far surpases any amount made in wheat or corn or anything. It only makes sense to invest in it. I mean if its raking in substantially more money than any LEGAL crop, imagine how much it would be worth if it was regulated.

Im still gonna bet that he wont take it.

Fuck all if it was regulated, unless artificial price controls were put on it (ie: tax/duties).

It's like cocaine; a multi-billion dollar industry. Yet in reality if it was legal then it'd probably cost similar to sugar, if not less on a per-weight basis - the processing is very simple if you have the right chemicals and the plant itself will grow anywhere.

I don't understand how this 'let us pay taxes' would work? Would it just involve randomly mailing a check off to the government, indicting you of federal level crimes? Would the IRS come round and do checks to make sure that you're not lying?

it could be an attempt at trying to semi bribe the governor to stop harassment of marijuana users. Sort of like ill scratch your back, you scratch mine.

Good read.

I wonder how they organized that many, hard to find, people into a claim of a billion dollars. Not doubting the money is there, but how the hell do you organized a bunch of secretive growers?

kong said:

I wonder how they organized that many, hard to find, people into a claim of a billion dollars. Not doubting the money is there, but how the hell do you organized a bunch of secretive growers?

Click to expand...

They didn't obviously, this is just a publicity stunt to highlight the amount of tax money legal marijuana would bring in.

I wonder if it exceeds the amount of federal DEA money and asset forfeitures in the state along with criminal fines and probabtion fees.

The so called "sin taxes" on alcohol and tobacco are getting so high I'm surprised a grey market hasn't developed already, and drugs are demonized to begin with so who knows what would happen if this idea ever came to pass.

mr_mojo said:

Fuck all if it was regulated, unless artificial price controls were put on it (ie: tax/duties).

It's like cocaine; a multi-billion dollar industry. Yet in reality if it was legal then it'd probably cost similar to sugar, if not less on a per-weight basis - the processing is very simple if you have the right chemicals and the plant itself will grow anywhere.

I don't understand how this 'let us pay taxes' would work? Would it just involve randomly mailing a check off to the government, indicting you of federal level crimes? Would the IRS come round and do checks to make sure that you're not lying?

Click to expand...

well it would basically be sold at a "state weed store" like liquor...which would be very easy to tax.

i can see it now.. the state gets involed and takes the thc count down to make more of a buck.. make you buy more to get as high..

garuda said:

They didn't obviously, this is just a publicity stunt to highlight the amount of tax money legal marijuana would bring in.

I wonder if it exceeds the amount of federal DEA money and asset forfeitures in the state along with criminal fines and probabtion fees.

Click to expand...

Not to mention the $7.9 billion California is spending to build new prisons based on a bill the governor signed this year. And the salaries of the prison guards, and the cops who make the busts, and the courts which try the cases. This is big, big money. They don't want any cracks in their oh-so-lucrative foundation of putting people in prison.

i disagree with nightfun, i think if anything marijuana potency would increase with legalization because there wouldn.t be mexi dirt being grown and sold for high prices, legalization would introduce more opportunities to use state of the art indoor growing techniques and there would be huge amounts of kush, purple, all kinds of very dank strands for very cheap prices.......yay!

Totally awesome.