Wouldn't it be better if the U.S. had a policy that actually put the production, distribution, sale, and tax revenue of marijuana in the hands of the Government and taxpayers rather than spending billions to enforce current laws? When everyone is scrambling to find the money to pay for services (you know, like roads and stuff), perhaps we should also be looking for reasonable alternatives for state and federal revenue?
I mean, really! The ill-advised bailout is already going to cost you and I a hell of a lot of money, whether or not you had a bad mortgage. So why not give us something back?
Ok, I'm not saying, 'Hey! Lets all get high and our problems will go away', but it seems to me that given the current trends towards medical marijuana and 'think global, buy local', that you could easily create an army of small businesses around the cultivation and sale of both medicinal and recreational marijuana.
I think that Maureen Brown has done a much better job of analyzing the numbers (and yeah, it's old, but still relevant) than I ever could, so I'll just point you there:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/...
-jaskel