[READER CAUTION: CONTROVERSIAL SUBJECT ALERT]
If we can’t learn to think outside the box, then we will not solve California’s massive financial problems which right now are the worst present we can leave for our children, grandchildren and their children and grandchildren. What if I told you that there was a $13.8 Billion annual crop growing right here in California, year after year, nearly double the value of California’s vegetable and grape crops combined, which is not hard to grow and thrives in California’s many climates and terrains, but which, amazingly, is not taxed at all?
What if I told you that California is the top producer of this valuable crop of all the 50 states. What if I told you that, using conservative numbers derived from analyses done by our Federal Government, the entire domestic production of this crop in the whole U.S. has an annual value of $35.8 Billion, making it the #1 largest and most lucrative cash crop grown in all of America!
It is the top cash crop in 12 states, one of the top 3 cash crops in 30 states, and one of the top 5 cash crops in 39 states. This crop is larger than Cotton in Alabama, larger than Grapes, Vegetables and Hay combined in California, larger than Peanuts in Georgia, larger than Tobacco in both South Carolina and North Carolina, larger than Hay, Tobacco, Corn and Soybeans combined in Kentucky, and larger than the top ten crops combined (Soybeans, Hay, Cotton, Corn, Tobacco, Vegetables, Wheat, Cottonseed, Sorghum and Apples) in Tennessee.
Further, what if I told you that this very same crop has been recently found in a 2800-year old Chinese Tomb, and in other prehistoric sites and that it has been used by mankind for perhaps the last 5,000 years, give or take a millennium.
How about if I shared with you that this crop, in medicinal form, was the #1 most prescribed medication by 19th Century Doctors, and that, again, according to government surveys, 14.5 million Americans use this cash crop at least monthly, but both the producers and consumers of this crop, mindbogglingly escape paying any taxes whatsoever on it. How about if I told you that Queen Victoria (1819-1901), longest reigning British monarch, used it for her menstrual cramps, and that people with arthritis and other diseases have used this crop to great relief from the chronic pain they carry around with them through life and that people undergoing chemotherapy have used this crop to relieve the extreme nausea which is such a torturous side-effect for so many.
Due to only recently relaxed restrictions and still primarily being conducted in other countries, medical research now indicates that this crop may contain chemistry which could actually be another natural ‘Wonder Drug,’ like aspirin or penicillin – imagine if aspirin was illegal, when you have your next headache or penicillin, when one of your kids gets strep throat.
Now, what if I told you that a review of the transcript of the 1937 Congressional proceedings which resulted in making this crop illegal reads like a Marx Brothers movie script and that some of the movers and shakers behind making this crop illegal were the Hearst empire, concerned about keeping monopolistic control over paper for their newspapers, and others who saw it as a threat to their own business interests and further that it offered convenient societal leverage over certain minority groups who were using the crop for various things including relaxation, the way you might stop at a bar on your way home from work or share a beer with your buddies while watching the “Game.”
How about if I told you that our government long forbade medical research into the properties of this crop, preferring instead to list it on a schedule which is for drugs with NO medicinal properties and then played the Catch-22 game, still being played, of saying that, since there are no medicinal properties from this crop, therefore, there is no reason to do medical research on this crop and therefore it is illegal. Oh yes, and by the way, it is dangerous, very dangerous; so everything associated with it is bad and not good.
How about if I added that a large segment of our prison population, housed at your and my tax expense are incarcerated due to either growing, selling, using or otherwise being associated with this cash crop and that the hidden costs of keeping this cash crop illegal must also include tying up the California Court system (each courtroom costs tens of thousands of dollars per day to open, for salaries for the Judge, Clerk, Court Attendant, Law Clerks, and Security personnel, as well as maintenance for the physical plant, pensions, healthcare and other expenses), law enforcement, and others, all paid by your and my tax dollars. California’s “prison population grew from about 59,000 inmates in 1986 to 173,000 inmates in 2006 (5 percent average annual growth). Similarly, the prison incarceration rate grew from 220 to 460 inmates per 100,000 Californians over the same period (4 percent average annual growth).”
Nearly a third “of court admissions to state prison are for property and drug offenses, including drug possession (15 percent), drug sales (15 percent), percent).” “Total state spending on criminal justice grew from about $15 billion in 1993-94 to more than $25 billion in 2003-04 (the most recent complete data available).” “State spending for criminal justice reached $14 billion in 2006-07.” “Spending on criminal justice programs takes up a greater share of total state expenditures today than a decade ago, increasing from about 6 percent of total expenditures in 1996-97, to about 7 percent in 2006-07. Spending for corrections makes up two-thirds of total state criminal justice expenditures in the current year.” The annual cost of incarcerating a single prisoner in California’s prison system for 2007 – for each prisoner mind you – was a mind-boggling $43, 287 – do the math! See the LAO’s Criminal Justice Primer for more information.
Guess what? If you haven’t figured out what this crop is yet, I suggest that you have just woken from a Rip Van Winkle-style long snooze since the early 60’s – Well, Welcome to the 21st Century, sleepyhead.
Full legalization of marijuana is, in part, the solution to California’s cash flow famine. Marijuana is the much maligned crop which was grown by our Founding Fathers (look it up!), and whose fibers make such a wonderful replacement for paper, cloth, and so many other useful raw materials which we regularly consume that its continued illegality, long past the point of rationality, may still be a product of fear of competition by alcoholic beverage makers, and producers/sellers of rope, string, cloth and other raw materials, whose monopolies are threatened. I’m not here to discuss morality or any other considerations – we are in a “Show Me the Money” crisis right now and I’m thinking of ways to save California and its 35 million citizens from financial destruction.
California needs to legalize marijuana right now, and tax it heavily – it doesn’t cost very much in its raw state anyway, and, further, to dismantle the marijuana-is- illegal-criminal apparatus, (saving this state Billions!) and begin to finally deal rationally and honestly with the fact that millions already use the crop in question and then go about, leading perfectly normal lives. We need to get over the century or more of old, now so clearly irrational thinking, which was originally based in some very serious racial discrimination against Mexicans, African Americans and other minorities whose association with marijuana was so conveniently and hysterically used by powerful figures of the early portion of last century – read the history of how the states first made marijuana illegal in the early 20th Century to assuage their much over-hyped fears of Mexicans taking away jobs – it is time; we are a much more tolerant and open and self-analytical society now and what better time to deal with this long neglected source of California’s revenues than now?
I’m putting on my flak jacket now – bombs away; I’m looking forward to hearing all thoughts- the good, the bad and the ugly.