Bill to Tax, Regulate Marijuana Introduced in California

A troubled economy might be the best friend to rational drug policy in this country.  Despite their protestations to the contrary, the Republican party LOVES Big Government, just of a different sort than the Democrats.  A fool's errand like our current drug policy mess is exactly the sort of Big Government they like and it becomes self-sustaining. 

Paradoxically, the harder they try to eradicate the problem, the worse the problem becomes, requiring bigger government efforts, increasing the the problem still more...  But no one really cares, because it's not about helping the small fraction of people who are going to develop a dependecy to a given substance, it's about finding a way to funnel some of my tax dollars to increase the criminal problems associated with that substance while making showy but laughably ineffective token efforts to address any medical problems (which are much smaller than the crime problems this policy model creates).

Democrats generally back off on calls for an end to this entirely unworkable approach for fear of being labeled (gasp) "soft on crime".  This obscures the truth that it is the government approach that has crimilized what should just be another business.  When was the last time you heard about a shoot-out between two alcoholic beverage "dealers" to protect their turf?  Yeah, that would be back when we mistakenly crimilized alcohol. 

The Mafia was just another bunch of ethnic gangsters preying primarily on their own community until Prohibition gave them an entree to the mainstream.  Thanks a million, 18th Amendment.

One tactic used frequently is to tar marijuana with the same brush used for much more dangerous substances.  As soon as you start making sense about pot, some guy with a budget to protect starts blathering about crackheads.  It's "bait and switch" applied to the wasting of tax dollars.

Ironically, the domestic pot industry owes its existence to the "Drug War".  In the 80's, when the Republicans cranked up this budget-busting execise, interdiction efforts dramatically reduced the supply of imported pot.  Not because the efforts were all that successful, but by increasing the risk.  As risk increases, so must reward.  So now I have a choice, I can try and bring in a freight container full of pot, or a suitcase full of coke; I make the same money either way.  Which would you pick?  Pot traffic from South America and Southeast Asia slowed down, as did hashish traffic from Central Asia, as cheap coke and heroin flooded the market.  (When was the last time anyone saw any Columbian Gold, Thai Stick, or Black Afgani Hash?) 

But maybe the government of the Great State of California will be forced by the curent economic reality to abandon this absurb model and move toward a rational drug policy.  We can but hope.