




"Fake tits are like Kevlar. They don't guarantee your chances of survival but they sure as hell improve it."
Tempest





there have been discussions in other threads as to what's REALLY at stake re California's prop 19 to legalize and regulate marijuana.
- California city and state gov'ts see this as a huge potential source of new tax revenue ... from the proposed $300,000 per year legal marijuana growers' license fees to the as yet unannounced targeted tax per ounce of weed sold.
- California city and upper level state LE see the decriminalization of weed as a potential huge savings in LE / court / prison system operating costs
- the Teamsters' union see this as an opportunity to add all of the 'licensed grower' hourly workers to their membership. The union has already signed up all of the hourly employees at California's already legal medicinal marijuana farms, and has already negotiated a pay raise from $18 an hour to $25 an hour.
- The California FDA and FTB see this as a means to greatly expand their staffs / operations
- independent small growers see this as the END of their business ... because they cannot afford the shockingly high license fees to become 'legal', they also cannot afford the highly probable drop in 'profit margin' as the non-tax component of marijuana's market price drops, and most of all they cannot afford the income tax consequences of their weed production and sales being accurately tracked by the Cal FTB ( think 1940's 'revenooers' relentlessly pursuing unlicensed 'moonshiners' )
- California's 'ruling elite' are very worried that legalized weed will permanently change California's culture ... i.e. the upscale Napa Valley paradigm being replaced with 'Stoner Central' as a huge number of new pot smokers from other states migrate to California.
- California's 'employers' are very worried that the 'productivity' of their mandatorily highly paid workers will seriously decline.
- existing illegal importers and distributors of ( mostly Mexican ) marijuana are dead set against legalization, since they would effectively be pushed out of the California market if fully legal sellers were available providing 'superior' quality product at essentially the same price.
- beer / wine / liquor companies are dead set against legalization, since they envision a large number of their present customers switching to pot as the recreational drug of choice if it were to become legally equal to beer / wine / liquor.
And believe it or not, some of the 'tea party' conservatives also strongly support prop 19 ... but for reasons that aren't immediately obvious. If California succeeds with prop 19, from a legal standpoint this would be a STRONG modern day precedent for the doctrine of 'nullification' ... i.e. the right of an individual state to 'nullify' federal laws that the majority of the states' citizens do not agree with - in this case the majority of Californians disagreeing with the federal gov'ts position that marijuana is a dangerous drug.
In theory, the same legal basis that might make prop 19 a success could potentially be used by other states to, for example, reject CO2 emissions regulations. reject gun controls, etc. on a directly analogous basis i.e. the majority of the citizens of Texas, for example, may not agree with the EPA's position that CO2 is a dangerous pollutant, or the majority of the citizens in Wyoming may not agree with the ATF's position that handguns are more dangerous than long guns. And on an indirect basis, the same doctrine of 'nullification' could also be directed toward states' rejection of National Health Care, of states rejecting the extension of social welfare / public school / other gov't benefits to illegal alien state residents, etc. The 'gold foil hat' crowd would probably tell you that the resulting reinforcement of the 'nullification' doctrine is the true reason that many of California's 'ruling elite' will oppose prop 19 ... because they realize that the legal principle of 'nullification' is a two-edged sword.
See
In fact, about the only group that has a clear win-win situation is the lawyers ... who are guaranteed years of new litigation work no matter how the prop 19 vote turns out.
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Last edited by Melonie; 10-09-2010 at 04:00 AM.
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