Taxing Marijuana

Dear friends,
California's state budget is in big trouble, because we have huge numbers of kids who need to be educated, and huge numbers of poor people who need health care, and no long-term solutions to our budget have appeared in a very long time. The largest cash crop in the state is Marijuana. Humbolt county is full of it. There was a great article in the New Yorker about the shadow industry that it has become. So I am delighted that 2 hours ago, Tom Ammiano, a Democratic assemblyman from San Francisco, introduced a bill that would legalize and tax marijuana. It would give our state a BILLION dollars in much-needed tax money.
I am really of the opinion that alcohol is probably worse for the human body than is marijuana, in terms of medical illness. Liver disease, esophageal varicosities, and all the other ramifications of cirrhosis are awful, terrible, and lethal. So if we permit alcohol, and are aware of its addictive and destructive potential, and are taxing it, we should also do the same for this drug.
I am very aware of the issue of addiction, and I do believe the addiction problems are immense. But I believe that jail is not an appropriate answer. There was a good article about addiction and jail in the JAMA last month, and there is a lot of data that punitive behavior does not solve or improve addiction recovery. We need to really enhance and enforce addiction medicine and therapy, and psychiatry and counselling.
I am a believer in the 12-step approach. I believe that doing the 12 step programs voluntarily will probably give the best results to addicts. Doing them under court-order may not be as helpful, but at least there is the beginning of a structured approach, and there is some data that it helps promote and attain recovery status in many addicts. If we have the tax, we can use it for treatment programs, too.
So I am going to send letters to my local legislators, asking them to support this bill.