Could marijuana save California?

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Quote:

In the 60s hippies fled to the backwoods of northern California to grow pot. There they have been joined by growers of 'medical marijuana' – available with a doctor's recommendation – as well as by Mexican drug cartels. With cannabis now its largest cash crop, the state will soon vote on whether to legalise it fully – and even Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is thinking the enormous tax revenues might just solve his budget deficit

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Even here, cannabis cannot be grown for profit or sold, so what keeps Hill's greenhouse legal is that the marijuana itself is owned "not by me but the collective" – the First Choice Collective, it is called. Its 1,200 members will have been "recommended" marijuana by a doctor. To be legal, subsequent transactions take place within a closed loop. "All I sell," says Hill, "are my services." According to the law, the collective and its members "remunerate" Hill – he is not paid commercially. But he makes a tidy living.

If only the same could be said of the Californian economy. It may be the eighth largest in the world, but the state government has issued IOUs and unemployment is at its highest for 70 years. In his final budget in January, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger proposed what he called "draconian" spending cuts aimed at fixing a $19.9bn (£13bn) budget deficit. He has said previously he would welcome a public debate on proposals to legalise and tax marijuana to help plug that hole.

Tax revenues from medical marijuana (amounting to roughly $200m) barely scratch the surface of what might be raised, given that marijuana is now by far the largest cash crop in what used to be known as the Orange State. It is this that has made an unlikely bedfellow of the actor who played the Terminator and those who might feel themselves closer in spirit to Dennis Hopper's character in Easy Rider.

In November – now that a referendum "initiative" has attracted sufficient signatures – there will be a state ballot on whether California should fully legalise marijuana. This will bring an industry worth an estimated $10bn in Mendocino County alone into the mainstream economy. "The state of California is in a very, very precipitous economic plight," Democratic state assemblyman Tom Ammiano, who introduced the legislation, said recently. "It's in the toilet… With any revenue ideas, people say you have to think outside the box, you have to be creative."

Interesting situation in California
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/09/marijuana-legalise-california-drugs-cartels

Wonder how that will turn out.

[BagOfCrisps 24]

Will it be cheaper?